It’s a big day for Apple as the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference begins in a few hours. It’s an occasion for Apple to showcase all its latest software features. This year, all eyes are on Apple to push artificial intelligence-related features, which will be rolled out to the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Over the past few months, the likes of Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI have pushed out several feature AI features but Apple has kept quite because the Cupertino-based company has been offering AI features for many years, only those were mostly under the term machine learning. According to analysts at Wedbush Securities, Apple’s expected push into AI makes this year’s WWDC “the most important event for Apple in over a decade”.

Welcome OpenAI?

Bloomberg has said that Apple is close to completing a deal to bring ChatGPT to the iPhone. This could be done because there is often reports of chatbots going “rogue”, which will put Apple in an embarrassing position. According to Bloomberg, the agreement with OpenAI is set to be announced at WWDC.

iOS 18 will be exciting

All eyes are on iOS 18, which is expected to be made public in fall with the launch of the new generation of iPhones. The closest Apple got to generative AI with iOS 17 was improve autocorrect (it uses a “transformer language mode” to correct more types of grammatical errors). This is unlike Google, which has been talking about generative AI in a big way.

What can Apple offer? If Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has got it right then Apple “will unveil a different approach to artificial intelligence, focusing on tools that ordinary consumers can use in their daily lives. The idea is to appeal to a user’s practical side—and leave some of the more whiz-bang features to other companies”.

Gurman wrote in his Power On newsletter that the updates are all part of a new strategy called Project Greymatter, which includes AI tools that Apple will push into “core apps” like Photos, Safari, Messages, and Notes. In other words, there can be something like a smart recap feature to summarise things like texts, emails, notes, documents, and web pages.
AI can also be made a part of voice memos in the form of transcription (Apple already has the ability to transcribe voice notes with iOS 17), an enhanced Spotlight feature and improvements to Safari web search.

More power to Siri

Siri has been slipping up over the years and there is immense potential for the voice assistant. The New York Times has reported that the next-generation version of Siri “will include a new generative AI system that will allow it to chat rather than respond to questions one at a time”.

Bloomberg too said that Apple is revamping Siri by “overhauling the digital assistant with its own large language models”. If done properly, iPhone’s AI may examine what you are doing and auto-enable Siri’s help, in matters like deleting an email, editing a photo or summarising notifications.

Greener bubbles

The blue and green bubble war may take a different turn as Apple may finally adopt Rich Communication Services (RCS) as the default fallback for iMessage, meaning iPhone and Android users can set aside their blue and green bubble differences and instead send each other longer text messages and higher-quality photos.

Customisable features

There will probably be a series of updates across Apple’s operating systems, for example iPhone users may now be able to place app icons wherever they want on their Home Screen, according to MacRumors. Apple has already announced some accessibility-related updates across iOS, iPadOS and VisionOS that are slated for release later this year.