Big Apple updates

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) starts today, Monday 10th June, with the main keynote speech starting at 10:00 AM PT (1:00 PM ET), in which Apple is expected to announce some major AI and software updates. 

What is Apple expected to announce?

 Reports say that Apple’s suite of new AI features–expected to be announced this week–will fall under the umbrella term of “Apple Intelligence.”  It’s believed that a large number of these AI features will be powered by partnerships Apple has formed, with the most recent and most publicized being its deal with OpenAI, which they’re expected to confirm this week, too. If this is true, Apple fans can surely expect to see a Chat-GPT-like bot on their Apple devices.

Assistant Siri is also expected to get an AI overhaul, which could see users using voice commands to control apps with their devices, meaning they could ask it to complete tasks like opening Maps, or writing and sending a message to a specific contact, for example. While Siri updates are expected to be announced, experts believe it won’t be demoed at the conference, Apple will probably tease it, and launch it with the iPhone 16 series in 2025.  

But perhaps the biggest, most anticipated announcement will be the launch of iOS18, expected to be one of most significant in iPhone history, thanks to AI. 

Rumors say that iOS 18 will have AI features that allow:

• The summarization of web pages, notes, text messages, notifications, and emails
• Automatically generated replies to emails and text messages
• Instant categorization of email messages 
• Custom emoji generation
• Transcriptions of voice memos
• Editing features within the Photos app
• Customizable home screens 

What Apple probably won’t announce

Although these AI updates are likely to be game-changing, Apple fans don’t believe they will announce any new hardware at the conference, unlike at last year's WWDC, where they launched the Vision Pro. It’s expected–like Google’s I/O 2024–to be a hardware-free conference.