AI Features, iOS18, and More: Everything You Need to Know about Apple’s WWDC Announcements

The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is the event that gives us an insight into what Apple, the world’s largest smartphone maker, is planning in the near future.

This year was no different as the third most valuable company in the world made a slew of announcements, including the much-awaited Apple Intelligence – how it intends to embrace the power of artificial intelligence in its products.

Here’s a list of everything Apple has announced so far at the WWDC.

Apple Intelligence: It’s the personal intelligence system for iPhone, iPad, and Mac that combines the power of generative models with personal context to deliver useful and relevant intelligence. It harnesses the power of Apple silicon to understand and create language and images, take action across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks.

“Our unique approach combines generative AI with a user’s personal context to deliver truly helpful intelligence,” said CEO Tim Cook. “And it can access that information in a completely private and secure way to help users do the things that matter most to them. This is AI as only Apple can deliver it, and we can’t wait for users to experience what it can do.”

Apple Intelligence will help users rewrite, proofread and summarise text nearly everywhere they write, including Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps. It will help identify priority mails, messages and notifications. In the Notes and Phone apps, users can now record, transcribe, and summarise audio.

Apple Intelligence will also power image creation capabilities to help users communicate and express themselves in new ways. With Image Playground, users can create fun images in seconds, choosing styles like Animation, Illustration, or Sketch. It also introduces Genmoji, an emoji created simply by typing a description. Users can even create Genmoji of friends and family based on their photos. Searching photos and cleaning them up will also become a lot easier.

Apple Intelligence will also make Siri more deeply integrated into the system experience. Users can switch between text and voice to communicate with Siri. It will be able to answer thousands of questions about how to do something on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.  Siri will also now take many new actions in and across apps, including finding recommendations sent by a friend in Messages and Mail.

Apple Intelligence plans to do all this while also protecting user privacy. A cornerstone of Apple Intelligence is on-device processing, and many of the models that power it run entirely on device. To run more complex requests that require more processing power, Private Cloud Compute extends the privacy and security of Apple devices into the cloud to unlock even more intelligence.

Apple is integrating ChatGPT access into experiences within iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, allowing users to access its expertise – as well as its image- and document-understanding capabilities – without needing to jump between tools. ChatGPT will also be available in Apple’s systemwide Writing Tools, which help users generate content for anything they are writing about.

Apple Intelligence is free and will be available in beta as part of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia this fall. Some features, software platforms, and additional languages will come over the course of the next year.

iOS 18: The release introduces all-new customisation options, the biggest-ever redesign of Photos, powerful updates for staying connected, and Apple Intelligence. This will include bringing the power of satellite messaging to the Messages app, allowing users to communicate when cellular or Wi-Fi connections are unavailable.

macOS Sequoia: Apart from integrating Apple Intelligence, the new macOS system will have new features, including text animations and Maps improvements, and it can mirror and control your iPhone via Continuity. All iPhone notifications will now appear on macOS. Safari will have artificial intelligence-powered highlights to extract helpful information from a webpage.

iPadOS 18: Calculator will finally come to iPads with the new system. It will also feature Interface improvements, which will be a floating tab bar and automatic sidebars that allow users to use more of the screen at any given time. It will support Apple Intelligence. Notes app has a new feature called Smart Script, which uses ‘on-device machine learning’ to clean up handwriting automatically. Typed and pasted words can be converted to look like handwritten words.

Apple Vision Pro & VisionOS 2: Will now be available in new countries and regions beginning June 13, when customers in China mainland, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore can pre-order it. Customers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the UK can pre-order on June 28.

Apple also announced the next iteration of OS for its Vision Pro, VisionOS 2, four months after it first launched VisionOS. VisionOS 2 will use AI to transform regular photos into spatial photos that are compatible with the Vision Pro, and will also have new gesture-driven controls. It will also feature an ultrawide display,equivalent to two side-by-side 4K monitors.

watchOS 11: A new training mode can track how the intensity and duration of users’ workouts affect their bodies over time. Intensity is tracked using calorimetry data such as heart rate, pace and elevation, and a new algorithm will automatically translate power sensor data into an estimate of your effort rating after your workout. A new Vitals app will track vitals such as heart rate, respiratory rate and risk temperature, and give you insights about them. The Cycle Tracking app will support pregnant users, showing their gestational age and allowing them to log symptoms for things frequently experienced during pregnancy. Artificial intelligence will identify photos that will work well as a background for the watch face.

AirPods: New updates this fall will see significant changes in Siri Interactions, like allowing you to take a call or reject it with a simple nod of head, or a shake. Voice Isolation will ensure AirPods Pro users are able to hear the caller’s voice in loud or windy environments. The new updates will also reduce audio latency while gaming.

Apple service new features: Users can now explore hikes (national parks in the US) and plan everything from a local exercise route to a full-day walking tour in a new city with Apple Maps, redeem rewards and access instalments with Apple Pay, enjoy a redesigned Apple Fitness+ experience, and new accessibility features in Apple Music.