Apple goes hard on AI for iPhone and iPad at WWDC 2024

We’ve just tuned in to Apple’s WWDC 2024 keynote presentation to bring you all the latest news on the tech giant’s software plans for the coming months. Going into the show, we anticipated Apple going all in on AI tools for iOS 18 after the arrival of Samsung’s Galaxy AI earlier this year, but Tim Cook and his team of software experts made us wait for the good stuff.

First, we found out about some quality-of-life and customization options for the upcoming iOS 18 iPhone update from Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi. These refinements include a new look for Dark Mode icons, media playback and smart home controls in the control center, and the ability to remap lock screen buttons or move around buttons on the home screen with no restrictions. We also got some good news for sneaky iPhone users. On iOS 18, you can lock individual apps, or hide them from your home screen entirely.

Federighi and the gang moved on to individual apps, with iOS 18’s new features including Game Mode, which like the Mac equivalent minimizes background activity to maximize frame rate, topographic maps for Maps, and a new look for Photos that organizes your library into more topics while filtering out screenshots. Before moving on to home and audio, we got the confirmation of something we’ve all been waiting for. RCS messaging is finally coming to iPhone!

For those who don’t know, RCS messaging is a feature we’ve been waiting for for years. It’s a system that Android phones use for communication and is quicker and more reliable than SMS messaging. While many didn’t think Apple would ever adopt RCS messaging, with iMessage’s blue bubbles a long-time selling point of the iPhone, it’s officially coming with iOS 18, making communication between iPhone and Android users much easier.

If you’re an Apple Watch user, you have some fresh features to look forward to with watchOS 11. With the upcoming Training Mode, you can set personalized training regimes and choose your intensity on a scale of one to ten. We’re also getting a Vitals app, so you can keep track of your most important health stats, plus the introduction of Check In for Apple Watch, a useful safety tool for late-night runners.

After watchOS, Federighi moved on to the iPadOS 18 update features, introducing the Math Notes feature, which takes the basic iPhone calculator app and utilizes the screen space of the iPad to make something even more useful. With Math Notes, you can write equations with an Apple Pencil before the tablet intelligently answers them. There’s also Smart Script, which utilizes machine-learning tools to tighten up your handwriting and make it more legible. My handwriting is horrendous, so I’ll be interested in trying this feature out myself.

If at this point, you’re asking “Okay, but where are the AI features?”, you know exactly how I felt watching the WWDC 2024 presentation. We’d heard so many rumors going into the event regarding AI tools that it felt like a given that Apple would lean into the smartphone artificial intelligence revolution. Then, it happened. Tim Cook introduced us to Apple Intelligence.

Apple Intelligence, Apple’s first big lean into AI with personal context awareness, is coming to iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and MacOS Sequoia. Unsurprisingly, Siri is the app most benefitting from new AI capabilities. Siri in iOS 18 understands vague questions and commands, just in case you’re not quite sure what you’re asking, and can answer specific questions about how to perform tasks on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Siri is also getting on-screen awareness, which we’d heard rumors of before the reveal, and can pull off specific actions, including image polishing or searching out information from your messages and email. Apple Intelligence is also bringing new writing tools, including Rewrite, which offers rewritten versions of your text, adjusts the tone, or edits sentence structure. There’s a Smart Reply tool, too, which does exactly what it says on the tin and creates a detailed reply based on minimal information. If you’re as lazy as I am, this is a bit of a game-changer.

Genmoji is another new Apple Intelligence tool, which can create unique emojis to send to your friends. If you want to go the extra mile, there’s also Image Playground, an on-device text-to-image prompt tool. It creates images in three styles; sketch, illustration, and animation, and can use faces from your camera roll for reference. This feature comes built into iMessage, so you can send your creations to your friends with just a few clicks.

In terms of image editing, Apple finally has its answer to Google Pixel’s Magic Eraser with the Clean Up function in iOS 18. Simply click on what you want to remove from an image, and it’s just another click to take it out. As ever with Apple, it’s all about simplicity and security, with no image editing knowledge needed to clean up your photos and no need to upload your pictures to a server.

If all that wasn’t enough, Federighi revealed that Apple is integrating ChatGPT into iOS 18 and the new version of Siri. It’s not automatic, though. First, your device has to ask if you’re happy with it referring to ChatGPT before finding your answer, writing your story, or creating your image. Better still, it’s all for free and doesn’t require a ChatGPT account, which is sure to cause some concern at Samsung HQ with rumors that the Korean brand is planning on charging for its Galaxy AI features in the near future.

So, when are we getting all these exciting AI features in the iOS 18 update? Fall. That’s when. We didn’t get any more details than that, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see iOS 18 arrive around the time of the iPhone 16 release date, which we’re expecting around September of this year. Still, there’s a big caveat, in that you need an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max to use the new AI features, which isn’t a big surprise considering the on-device power it requires to pull off the AI magic.

There you have it, all the highlights from Apple’s WWDC 2024 presentation. If you want to find out what the Android brands are up to in their continuous effort to compete with Apple, see our guides to the best Google Pixel phones, best Samsung phones, and best Xiaomi phones.