iOS 18

A new report says that iOS 18 Siri features will include a better contextual understanding of things like people, companies, events, and locations.

A new ‘catch-up’ feature is also said to be included in the AI feature-set, where you can ask Siri to bring you up to speed on notifications you’ve received while away from your phone …

At WWDC, Apple will unveil its AI strategy as part of iOS 18 and its other operating system announcements. As previously reported by Bloomberg and others, the company plans to exploit a combination of on-device and server processing.

However, processing of user data on Apple’s server infrastructures raises privacy concerns, especially when Apple has been touting on-device approach for so many years. Today, The Information explains Apple has what it thinks is a solution to provide rich AI processing abilities in its cloud while maintaining strict privacy standards.

AI is everywhere. Tech companies not talking about AI are hard to find. When compared to players leading in this space like OpenAI and Google, Apple is generally seen as being “behind.”

But despite AI being everywhere, in many ways it’s also still a fringe technology for the average person. It’s not truly mainstream. Sure it’s accessible to anyone with access to the web, but the number of people actually using services like ChatGPT is still relatively small compared to the total population of users with a smartphone or computer.

This is why next month’s WWDC presents Apple with tremendous opportunity. iOS 18 has the potential to truly bring AI to the masses.

Mark Gurman reported over the weekend that customizing iOS app icons will be one of the new features we can expect to see in iOS 18.

On the face of it, that seems a relatively minor cosmetic change, but I think it does open the door to using it in rather an impactful way …

Mark Gurman’s latest newsletter suggests that Apple may choose to label the AI features in iOS 18 as a beta or preview, similar to the way the company labelled Siri when it launched.

Gurman’s piece has a lot of impressive details about Apple’s plans for iOS 18, from customizable icon colours to AI-generated personal emoji. But it also contains a criticism I feel is unwarranted …

In the latest edition of Mark Gurman’s newsletter for Bloomberg, he reports that Apple’s highly-anticipated AI features for iOS 18 and its other operating systems may be released with a ‘beta’ or ‘preview’ designation.

This is perhaps another sign that Apple was caught off-guard by the AI revolution, and its planned features for this cycle aren’t yet reliable or good enough to launch unqualified, without a beta label.

We’re just two weeks away from WWDC, where Apple will showcase iOS 18 with new AI features, home screen customization updates, and more. According to a new report today, one of the new “standout AI features” will allegedly be the ability to use artificial intelligence to “create custom emojis.”

As reported by Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter, iOS 18 will give users more customization of their iPhone’s home screen. As well as being able to place icons freely, rather than confined to the current fixed aligned grid, Apple will also be unlocking app icon customization as a first-party feature for the first time.

Specifically, Gurman reports that iOS 18 will allow users to “change the color of app icons”. For instance, they could make all their social networking apps have a blue color, and all their finance apps have a blue color.

Today the Unicode Consortium previewed the new emoji that are expected to be added to Apple’s upcoming OS updates, including iOS and iPadOS 18, watchOS 11, and more. Though the list isn’t finalized yet, it’s likely that everything outlined will be approved and added to the official set of emoji that platform owners like Apple and Google will adopt.

One standout from the list is a new ‘face with bags under eyes’ emoji that makes me feel truly seen. It’s undoubtedly bound to be one of the most popular additions. Other new emoji include a shovel, fingerprint, beet, and more.

We’re less than three weeks away from WWDC, where Apple will announce iOS 18 and its array of new AI and new home screen customization features. A new rumor today suggests that Apple is also working on updates to Apple Music crossfade for iOS 18…

It’s still a few weeks until WWDC, but Apple has already pre-announced some of the innovative features coming to iOS 18, visionOS 2, and its other platforms via an accessibility news drop. Later this year we’ll be getting Vision Pro-style eye tracking on iPad and iPhone, powerful Vocal Shortcuts to create custom device voice commands, Live Captions for augmented reality on visionOS, and a hands-free CarPlay mode.

One other iOS 18 feature announced, which is sure to be beneficial to an especially broad array of users, is called Vehicle Motion Cues. This feature aims to reduce or eliminate motion sickness for iPhone users riding in the car.

Today amid a wealth of accessibility announcements, including hands-free CarPlay and the futuristic Live Captions on Vision Pro, Apple announced that iOS 18 would be introducing a powerful new voice feature. Vocal Shortcuts will enable system-wide action triggers based on custom phrases you set, with no need to say “Siri.”

Apple today announced new accessibility features that will debut later this year in iOS 18 and its other operating systems (although as usual, Apple does not specifically refer to ‘iOS 18’ prematurely).

The headline addition is Eye Tracking, which will allow iPhone and iPad users with physical disabilities to control their devices just by looking at it with their eyes, with a new iOS gaze system somewhat similar to Vision Pro. Other new features include music haptics, Vehicle Motion Cues, and more …

If you haven’t yet watched yesterday’s OpenAI event, I highly recommend doing so. The headline news was that the latest GPT-4o model works seamlessly with any combination of text, audio, and video.

That includes the ability to ‘show’ the GPT-4o app a screen recording you are taking of another app – and it’s this capability the company showed off with a pretty incredible iPad AI tutor demo …

Today OpenAI held a spring update event, where it outlined some of its latest work on the ChatGPT platform. One key announcement was the arrival of a new Mac desktop app, but the larger focus was on a new flagship model of ChatGPT. This new model, GPT-4o, arrives just in time for a rumored deep integration into iOS 18 at WWDC.

Apple is finalizing an agreement with OpenAI to bring some of its technology to the iPhone this year, according to a new report from Bloomberg. With this deal, the report explains that Apple will be able to offer “a popular chatbot” powered by ChatGPT as part of its AI-focused features in iOS 18.

Coming on the heels of a Wall Street Journal report that Apple was developing its own chips geared toward powering AI-focused data centers, today Mark Gurman at Bloomberg effectively confirmed the report while adding new details of his own.

We’ve been hearing a lot of rumors about iOS 18 having new AI-powered features, since Apple CEO Tim Cook himself has confirmed many times that the company has been working on generative AI features. Now a report claims that iPhone and iPad users will have the option of summarizing long text messages using AI.

2024 is shaping up to be the “Year of AI” for Apple, with big updates planned for iOS 18 and more. The rumors – and Tim Cook himself – make it clear that there are new AI features for Apple’s platforms in the works. Here’s everything we know about the ways Apple is exploring AI features…

Apple is reportedly planning to supercharge the Calendar and Reminders apps with iOS 18 and macOS 15 this year. These updates join a long list of other expected iOS 18 improvements, including new AI features, upgrades to Safari, and more.

It’s clear that we’re going to see some exciting new Apple AI features this year, and the usual way for the company to announce major new iOS features would be to preview them at WWDC, and then launch them in September with the new iPhone line-up.

But there could be a couple of reasons to hope for some kind of preview of these new features on the new iPad Pro during the May 7 Let Loose Apple event …