WWDC 2024: iOS 18 with AI, macOS 15, and more

We’ve seen two approaches to AI in mobile tech this year: “AI That’s Not Your Phone” and “AI That Does Random Stuff on Your Phone.”

The “Not Your Phone” group includes devices like the Rabbit R1 and the Humane AI Pin, two small gadgets that sought to make AI more useful by building it into a smaller, simpler gadget. It hasn’t gone very well. Both devices came with big promises to help us get things done without looking at our phone screens. Neither delivered.

Apple has a plan for AI, and we’re finally going to hear more than whispers about it on June 10th during this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference. If you’re not among the lucky few going to Cupertino, California, to see WWDC 2024 live, you can stream the keynote at 1PM ET on YouTube, in the Apple TV app, or on Apple’s events page.

The company is expected to reveal a swath of new AI features for its next big iOS update, including voice memo transcriptions, custom emoji generated on the fly, and Siri improvements that include the ability to control individual app features.

Humanoid robots are one of those dreams that sometimes feel like we’re on the precipice of realizing. Boston Dynamics has its Atlas robot, and Tesla is pursuing robotics, while companies like Mercedes, Amazon, and BMW are or will be testing robots for industrial use. But those are all very expensive robots performing tasks in controlled environments. In the home, they might still be far off.

Enter Apple. Mark Gurman at Bloomberg has said its robotics projects are under the purview of former Google employee John Giannandrea, who has been in charge of Siri and, for a time, the Apple Car. With the car project canceled, the Vision Pro launched, and “Apple Intelligence” around the corner, is that the next big thing?

At last month’s iPad Pro M4 launch, Tim Cook said it was “the biggest day for iPad since its introduction.” That was pretty clearly not the case: it was a day of really nice incremental hardware updates to a tablet that already had more power than most people know what to do with.

But Cook’s proclamation could still be true, at least in retrospect. Apple just needs to stick the landing and use WWDC to show us a powerful operating system that’s worthy of the new iPad Pro’s powerful hardware.

When Apple first launched Siri in 2011 alongside the iPhone 4S, the company made a series of very compelling ads showing how you might use this newfangled voice assistant thing. In one, Zooey Deschanel asks her phone about delivering tomato soup; in another, John Malkovich asks for some existential life advice. There’s also one with Martin Scorsese shuffling his schedule from the back of a New York City taxi. They showed reminders, weather, alarms, and more. The point of the ads was that Siri was a useful, constant companion, one that could tackle whatever you needed. No apps or taps necessary. Just ask.

Siri was a big deal for Apple. At the launch event for the 4S, Apple’s Phil Schiller said Siri was the best feature of the new device. “For decades, technologists have teased us with this dream that you’re going to be able to talk to technology and it’ll do things for us,” he said. “But it never comes true!” All we really want to do, he said, is talk to our device any way we want and get information and help. In a moment of classic Apple bravado, Schiller proclaimed Apple had solved it. 

Apple is gearing up to reveal a new AI system on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac next week at WWDC 2024 — and it will be called Apple Intelligence, according to a report from Bloomberg. In addition to providing new “beta” AI features across Apple’s platforms and apps, it will reportedly offer access to a new ChatGPT-like chatbot powered by OpenAI.

Apple reportedly won’t focus on buzzy AI features like image or video generation and will instead focus on adding AI-powered summarizations, reply suggestions, and an AI overhaul for Siri that could give it more control over apps while chasing applications with “broad appeal.”

Starting this fall, it appears Siri is going to be much more powerful. Whether this is good news or a harbinger of infinite technological frustration depends on how you feel about Siri, AI, virtual assistants, and the whole idea that your devices should be able to do stuff on your behalf. Either way, it seems virtually certain that at Apple’s WWDC event on Monday, we’re going to hear an awful lot about how Siri can make your life better.

This year’s WWDC is actually an important one for Apple. CEO Tim Cook and others have been hinting that this is when Apple will reveal its grand plans for AI and end the notion that Apple is somehow behind Google, OpenAI, and the rest. What will it look like, though? Who knows! But it’s going to be AI, and it’s going to be everywhere.

Every year, Apple’s WWDC comes third after Google’s I/O and Microsoft’s Build developer conferences, and Apple has hardly ever needed to announce a product in response. This time, however, things are different.

Over the past month, Apple’s biggest rivals presented bold plans for AI, with Google showing its latest Gemini models and Microsoft revealing powerful Copilot features like Recall. Now, Apple has to step up to the plate and show that it isn’t far behind in bringing its customers useful generative AI experiences.