Apple Intelligence Release Date – Which iPhones Will Support AI Features?
Apple's WWDC is set to focus on AI with Siri improvements and custom emojis. It may also unveil an Xcode tool to rival Microsoft's Copilot. l Source: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Key Takeaways
- Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference brought new artificial intelligence (AI) tools to the public.
- New iOS 18, iPadOS, and MacOS features will be available for US users in Autumn.
- The release date of other new tools is still uncertain.
- The Cupertino-based company has worked with OpenAI and launched a new version of Xcode.
- New iOS features – and version – have been highly expected by the Apple community.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken center stage at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC ). During the much anticipated two-hour event, Apple outlined its plans for integrating AI into its operating systems, including iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, and watchOS 11.
Furthermore, the Cupertino-based company has unveiled a collaboration with Microsoft-backed OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, to bring advanced AI capabilities to its platforms.
AI Has Been The Main Protagonist
Powerful, intuitive, integrated, personal, and private – this is how Tim Cook introduced Apple’s “next big step,” Apple Intelligence.
Apple unveiled the new generative models behind Apple Intelligence, which will be available on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Contributing to Apple’s AI advancements was OpenAI, with Sam Altman present in the audience as Tim Cook showcased the new features.
Apple Intelligence offers multiple intuitive capabilities. One of these is enabling users to ask their iPhone if a postponed meeting will conflict with a personal commitment. It can recognize important notifications based on context, improve writing across native and third-party apps with system-wide proofreading and style enhancements. It can also create generative photos in styles like Sketch, Illustration, and Animation.
Apple Intelligence can also perform specific tasks across various apps, such as retrieving files sent by a contact over a specific period. It leverages cloud-based models using Apple Silicon to ensure user data remains private and secure.
With the arrival of Apple Intelligence, Siri gains numerous new features, including answering “thousands of questions” about using your device and performing actions like sending an Apple News article to a group thread in Messages. Siri will also benefit from the “personal context” integration, accessing a broader range of information and data on your device.
Apple will provide further details of its products in the coming days, as the WWDC will end on Friday. However, the company led by Tim Cook specified that Apple Intelligence will be free for users and will debut in beta with iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia this Fall, initially in the US.
Additional features, software platforms, and languages will roll out over the next year, without a certain release date. Also rumors among tech experts and Apple community haven’t provided any precise release date. Apple Intelligence will be available on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad and Mac devices with M1 chips and later, which already have Siri, and the device language is set to US.
What’s New With iOS 18
As anticipated, the major innovations in iOS 18 , in addition to AI integration, focus on personalization and privacy. These are two key aspects for Apple.
The Home screen is now even more customizable, allowing users to add apps and widgets to any available space. In dark mode, icons change color automatically, and users can also select colors manually. The Control Center has a new design with a new “Controls Gallery,” where icons can be enlarged or reduced according to needs and grouped based on usage habits. Users can add new controls from supported third-party apps. For the first time, controls at the bottom of the lock screen can also be customized.
A new feature allows app access via Face ID, Touch ID, or passcode. It provides the option to hide blocked apps in a special folder. Additionally, users can now choose which contacts to share with an app.
The introduction of Tapbacks enables users to react to any received message with icons, emojis, and stickers. New features include scheduled message sending, the ability to add italic, bold, and underlined text, text and emoji effects, and end-to-end encrypted satellite messages. The Messages app now also supports the RCS standard.
The new Highlights feature allows users to find information on the web even faster. Using machine learning, Safari highlights key information on a page and can summarize articles. Apple has redisegned the reading mode to allow distraction-free reading.
Other new features span across Messages, Maps, Wallet, Gaming, Photos, SharePlay, and more. All the new features will be available for iPhones from the 15 version and following ones.
Xcode To Compete With Microsoft’s Copilot
It’s important to remember that WWDC is primarily a developer-focused event. The centerpiece for developers this year was Xcode 16, Apple’s integrated development environment (IDE). Xcode 16 introduces Swift Assist, a cloud-hosted AI companion similar to GitHub Copilot.
Swift Assist helps developers with coding tasks, allowing them to focus on higher-level problems and solutions. It is seamlessly integrated into Xcode and is familiar with the latest software development kits (SDKs) and Swift language features.
Additionally, Xcode 16 includes a new predictive code completion engine optimized for Swift and Apple SDKs, a dynamic linking architecture, and various other enhancements.
Apple has also celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Swift programming language with a new version that offers compile-time data-race safety for improved code safety and maintainability, support for additional code editors, and GitHub-hosted Swift compiler, Foundation, and other key libraries.
“Today, nearly 1 million apps use Swift,” Apple noted, “throughout Apple’s software stack – from apps and frameworks to firmware like Secure Enclave.”
