“I just need to see something particularly useful that AI can do,” a tech journalism veteran told me ahead of Apple’s WWDC 2024 event. of hardware allowed. By the time Apple’s event was over, I had a strong feeling that Apple might just have delivered the most practical dose of AI on a smartphone.
We’ve entered the era of Apple Intelligence on the iPhone. I’ll get the bad news out of the way first: the entire AI platter is only served up on the latest and greatest “Pro” iPhones. They aren’t even available for the iPhone 15 or iPhone 15 Plus. It seems the silicon and the onboard NPU are to blame, or maybe it’s the all important memory limitations. Similar restrictions apply to iPads, which need at least an M-class processor.
Google’s approach isn’t too different. The company kept Gemini Nano on the device limited to the Pixel 8 series phones, while Samsung also started the race with Galaxy AI features exclusive to the Galaxy S24 series phones. Some course corrections occurred in the following weeks.
But that’s where the similarities end. Apple Intelligence — Apple’s packaging for its iPhone AI features — is several leagues ahead of the AI advancements we’ve seen on Android phones. Even this early, Apple’s lead in this race isn’t even close.
What makes Apple Intelligence special
To its credit, Apple says it wants to do most of the AI processing on the device, a task that needs a powerful AI accelerator and silicon. Why isn’t the A16 in the iPhone 15 cutting it? We don’t know, despite the fact that it comfortably beats the Pixel 8’s Tensor silicon and Qualcomm’s best in the Galaxy S24 also struggles to catch up.
But hey, I’d take the safety of my personal data any day over trusting hardware that offloads demanding AI tasks to a cloud server run by another company. But how does AI in iOS 18 stack up against what Android phones have achieved with their own fancy Gemini Nano licensing and deals with players like Perplexity? How to measure functional efficiency?
Well, just check out how deep the AI works with the on-board system and apps instead of acting as a lone warrior who has his own fixed set of limits. This is where Apple Intelligence leaves the competition behind by a solid margin. It’s recorded at the system level in apps like Mail, Notes, Pages, and even third-party apps.
Apple’s writing tools, for example, will let you change the style of the text on the screen, summarize it, convert it to bullet points, and more. Previously, you would need to download a dedicated app or tool like Paragraph AI for the same task. It will also correct and make appropriate editing suggestions as you progress with your work.
AI tricks that are legitimately useful
AI needs to add practical value, and there’s no better way to flex those muscles than with utilitarian applications like email. In the Mail app, Apple’s AI will not only show you high-priority messages at the top. It will also generate digest versions of emails so you don’t have to lose your mind reading each one in a long thread.
Apple extended a similar courtesy to notifications. My iPhones have given me a real case of notification anxiety, and that long view of maps on the lock screen certainly doesn’t help. In iOS 18, the built-in AI will not only prioritize notifications, but also summarize them.
A similar facility is extended to emails. It seems Apple engineers have been fascinated by a certain very good AI-powered email app called Shortwave. Either way, I’ll take advantage of the convenience. On the topic of summary, we have a transcription.
Thanks to AI, your iPhone will finally let you record and transcribe conversations. Audio clips added to notes are also automatically transcribed with the added ability to summarize. As a journalist who has to carry a Pixel smartphone solely for its fantastic Recorder app every day to conduct interviews and transcribe them, Apple’s new transcription and summarization features are nothing short of a godsend.
Apple also puts some AI magic into focus mode. Now AI will show important alerts based on their content so you don’t miss anything urgent. This is another thoughtful addition. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve missed messages from Slack or Teams because I’ve enabled focus mode for work hours. And since it syncs with Apple hardware, there’s no way you’ll accidentally run into any of those message notifications.
Google was walking so that Apple could work
Another nice feature is Smart Reply in the Mail app. I liked this feature in Gmail, but it looks like Apple is going deeper. AI won’t just suggest a generic response for an email. Instead, it will identify all the questions asked in an email and suggest appropriate answers for each. Pretty cool and comfortable, I’d say.
For people who take a lot of photos and share them, the Photos app will let them search for media with text prompts like “find me photos of my cat wearing a purple hat.” There’s also a neat trick that will remove unwanted elements from your photos and perform a smart pixel fill. Yes, it’s inspired by Google Photos, but also a a lot of the Apple Intelligence features that were announced at WWDC.
The most powerful — and significant — AI-driven feature of iOS 18 is that Siri can now talk to other apps installed on your phone and perform the necessary actions. “Aware of your personal context,” says Apple. For example, you can ask “Find me coffee shops recommended by Joe” and Siri will search for conversations with Joe and find relevant information. Apple’s demos show Siri poking around in Messages, Mail and File Manager.
These are the AI features we’ve been waiting for
In particular, thanks to the App Intents framework, developers can integrate Siri into their apps to perform a wide range of tasks. Image Playgrounds and Writing Tools (provided by ChatGPT) will also use this integration. This takes the Siri utility to a whole new level, where it can handle tasks in almost any app with a voice command, without users ever touching or touching their phone’s screen.
Virtual assistants have always been supposed to make our interaction with the phone easier, ease the difficulties and act as intelligent digital companions that will not let us down at every step. Deeper application integrations and context awareness are a step in the right direction. It’s just surprising to see that in its first attempt, Apple has managed to surpass Google’s early lead as Google and impose AI in a rewarding way on your phone.
But would you agree to give Siri access to your end-to-end encrypted WhatsApp chats for the sake of convenience? Which Apple Intelligence tricks can work offline? Is Apple 100% ethical with image generation capabilities from a copyright perspective? Why were extremely powerful iPhones excluded from accessing Apple Intelligence? What are the fine details of Apple’s partnership with OpenAI and baking ChatGPT into iOS to the point where it essentially exists as Siri’s assistant?
There are many questions that still need to be answered. I’ll wait until Apple Intelligence comes out for testing, but so far it looks like the best execution of the “AI on phone” idea – and puts the competing Android offerings to shame.
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