WWDC 2024: The main star of Apple's event artificial intelligence

The star of this year's Worldwide Developers Conference, which took place on Monday, was the new AI platform "Apple Intelligence." Apple also showed off some new features in its operating system. iPhone users will get help writing text summaries, creating original images and finding relevant information when they need it. Siri, once a pioneer of digital assistants, is also getting a new look.

Apple is chasing the competition in the UI race, especially here we mean players like Alphabet and Microsoft, both of which are quite a few steps ahead of Apple. As usual, Apple is betting on a refined user interface and, of course, a loyal customer base in order to narrow the gap with competitors or even overtake them.

“This is the moment we have all been working together for a long time", says the senior vice president Craig Federighi, who leads the software development department. He described “Apple Intelligence” as “UI for everyone else,” echoing an old Mac slogan in his presentation.

The partnership with OpenAI will give Apple device users free access to ChatGPT through Siri. The “Apple Intelligence” is coming with updates later this year, while certain features, such as the ability to control apps via Siri, won’t be available until next year. Support for languages other than English won’t be available until later this year.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was at the event on Monday and wrote on the X network that he was “very excited to be working with Apple.” While the ChatGPT integration will be free, paid OpenAI subscribers will get additional features over time. Apple, which has also been in talks with Google about using the Gemini model, said it plans to support other services later.

A significant part of the presentation was dedicated to the topic of user data security. Federighi highlighted, among other things, that a system called “Private Cloud Compute” will ensure that user data is always safe when it is sent to data centers. “Apple Intelligence” will support, among other things, UI emoji called “Genmoji” and automatic photo editing.

Apple iOS 18 and iPadOS will receive improvements in personalization, productivity and communication. Here's some news:

• The updated home screen will allow users to place icons wherever they want. App icon colors will also be able to change and adjust based on whether the user is using light or dark mode.
• The new Control Center includes support for third-party controls, multiple settings pages, and an updated look.
• iPhone 14 and newer models will get support for sending text messages via satellites. Until now, this has only been available in emergencies.
• The “Messages” application will allow you to schedule text messages.
• Users will be able to set special effects for individual words and phrases, rather than entire texts, such as word shaking. There's also rich support for writing texts, which will make communication easier between Apple and Android users.
• The “Passwords” app will manage passwords, login information, and Wi-Fi settings.
• The updated “Photos” app will improve photo editing capabilities with the help of artificial intelligence.
• Face ID lock will be available for all applications.
• For the first time, the iPad will get a “Calculator” app, which will allow people to solve handwritten math equations with the Apple Pencil. The absence of this iPad app has been a long-standing issue among customers, and the new feature was met with applause at Monday’s event.

Despite Apple taking the lead in the AI race in 2011 when Siri was released, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa quickly took over. Of course, artificial intelligence took its biggest leap at the end of 2022, when OpenAI introduced ChatGPT.

Services from Google, Microsoft and Meta have boomed, and Samsung, Apple's biggest rival in smartphone development, integrated Google's UI features into its devices earlier this year.

Apple's first man, Tim Cook, is under a lot of pressure to put the iPhone maker back on top. The pressures are even greater due to the drop in sales, as the company's revenues have decreased in the last five out of six quarters. Mainly at the expense of lower demand for smartphones, where the drop is greatest in China.

On Monday, Cook said that artificial intelligence will be “the next big thing for Apple.” The company won’t directly make money from the new UI features, but it hopes that the new features will make users more loyal and more likely to buy and replace products.

“We think that Apple Intelligence will be an indispensable part of products that already play a key role in our lives", he added.