American tech company Apple took to the stage yesterday at its Worldwide Developers’ Conference to unveil its new software products. As expected, iOS 18 took centre stage with various new features that users should expect to start rolling out in a few months.
Apple Intelligence
The company had been rumoured to officially make its push into AI with various announcements just like we’ve seen with the likes of openAI and Google recently.
So, we now have Apple Intelligence, the firm’s new addition that is meant to redefine the artificial intelligence space in their terms. It’s all about personalised AI tools designed to help users with daily tasks. So we can expect most apps from Apple to be equipped with AI including writing tools, the Mail app and more.
Apple also pointed out that its AI is “grounded in your personal information and context”, thanks to on-device processing. This means that the AI will be aware of your data while not collecting your data.
The AI will also let you create images that you can easily use in your conversations based on your friends’ profile pictures. The AI will be able to sketch, illustrate and animate images using Apple’s Image Playground, which is built into many native apps but also as a standalone tool.
Siri
There was a huge expectation for Apple to finally bring a huge upgrade to Siri, an assistant that has seemed neglected by the firm for a long time compared to its rivals. And with the rumoured partnership with OpenAI, we expected to finally see a smarter version of Siri than we have before.
While it will be smarter with contextual responses, the upgrade will only be available for devices with Apple Intelligence. This means only those with iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max or newer will be able to access it. That also means that if you want to access ChatGPT within Siri either, you will have to use the dedicated app from OpenAI.
New iOS 18 Features
The new iPhone operating system is set to bring in some interesting cool features:
- Control gallery: Apple is making the Control Center more accessible by adding even more options. It’s possible to resize widgets, reorganize them, and more.
- Lock Screen widgets: Apple will finally let you choose other widgets than Camera and Flashlight
- Action Button: Users can choose a Control Center widget
- Lock App: Apple will let users lock apps with Face ID; it’s possible to lock searches, notifications, and more
- Hide an app: There’s a new hidden App Library fold where you can put some apps and lock them behind Face ID
- Tapbacks: Tapbacks have been remade, and you can now react with any emoji or sticker
- Scheduling messages: You can now schedule messages to send later
- Customize Messages: Add italic, underline, or strike to your messages
- Text effects: There are new effects that you can use for your messages, highlighting specific parts of the message and more
- iMessage via Satellite: You can send iMessage through Satellite when you don’t have an LTE/5G connection
- RCS: Apple says RCS Messaging Support is coming later this year
So what feature are you most excited about?
