Apple’s 5 New AI Features Announced at WWDC 2024

Apple Intelligence is a new suite of AI features for the iPhone, Mac, and more.

WWDC just concluded, and man, that was AI-packed!

This year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) has been one of the most exciting and highly anticipated events ever, especially with all the buzz about AI. Apple has been notoriously tight-lipped about its AI developments while other companies were tripping over themselves to launch their AI products.

Today, the wait is over. We have finally seen the fruits of Apple’s meticulous work on AI. Here are my top five picks of all the AI announcements made by Apple at WWDC 2024:

1. Siri with ChatGPT

2. AI-Powered Writing Tools

3. Genmoji: AI-generated Emojis

4. Image Playground: Apple’s AI Image Generator

5. New Photos App

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Siri with ChatGPT

Siri has received some long-needed major upgrades: a more natural way of speaking, smarter Apple Intelligence generative AI models, and a brand new UI/UX.

Image from Apple

What’s even cooler? Siri will now have on-screen awareness of what you’re currently looking at and can take in-app actions. For instance, if you’re filling out a form that asks for your driver’s license number, Siri can find a picture of your license, extract the number, and fill it in for you automatically.

Wait… Siri will monitor my on-screen activity. That’s kind of creepy.

Siri will also get a visual makeover. Instead of the usual symbol, it now opens with a glowing light around the edges of your iPhone’s screen. Thanks to upgraded language comprehension capabilities, you’ll be able to speak to Siri “more naturally” than ever before.

Image from Apple

If Siri can’t answer a question, you can connect it to OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o model for free. Apple promises that your info and request details won’t be logged, keeping your privacy intact.

Take a look at how it works below:

Image from Apple

Is this the reason why OpenAI made ChatGPT’s core features and most powerful model free for everyone? Apple gives you an assurance that privacy protections are built in for users who access ChatGPT —your IP address is obscured, and OpenAI won’t store requests.

Apple also announced the App Intents API, which provides developers the functionality to deeply integrate their app’s actions and content with system experiences across platforms, including Siri, Spotlight, widgets, controls, and more.

Image from Apple

You can learn more about App Intents API here.

New Writing Tools

Apple is integrating new AI-powered writing capabilities across apps and nearly everywhere you write, including Mail, Notes, and third-party apps.

Rewrite

The new Rewrite feature will generate alternate versions of your draft, letting you pick one that better matches your style or tone. Based on the preview, Rewrite will appear as a small blue button whenever text is selected.

Image from Apple

Click it, and you’ll see options to make your writing more “friendly,” “professional,” or “concise.” You can even prompt Rewrite to handle specific requests, like “Write this as a poem.”

Image from Apple

Proofread and Summarize

RIP Grammarly and Quillbot! Apple’s Proofread feature offers grammar, word choice, and sentence structure suggestions for free across iOS. It provides edits with explanations to help improve your writing.

For longer pieces, the Summarize tool can extract key points for a quick review or create a TL;DR for recipients. It also works in your inbox, summarizing long emails so you can grasp the essential points of each message quickly.

Image from Apple

Apple also updated the Smart Reply feature. It isn’t new, but the recent upgrades powered by Apple Intelligence make it even more accurate.

So, these new and free features baked into the OS just killed third-party writing tools out there.

Genmoji: AI-generated Emojis