WWDC 2024 is set for June 10-June 14 where all eyes will be on Apple to reveal its big AI plans. At the developers’ event, Cupertino will unveil iOS 18, the next major update for iPhone, and reports suggest it could be big, or rather the “most ambitious” one yet.
According to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, iOS 18 will be the “most ambitions overhaul of the iPhone’s software in its history.” That’s coming from “people working on the update” and going by Gurman’s excellent track record, you better believe it. Moreover, people familiar with the matter say that AI will be “front and centre” for iOS 18.
As for official sources, Apple’s SVP of Marketing Greg Joswiak has all but confirmed that AI will be touched upon during WWDC 2024 through a play of words while announcing the dates. “It’s going to be Absolutely Incredible!” he posted on X (the platform previously known as Twitter).
We don’t know how and where Apple plans to put AI into the iPhone just yet. Reports have previously suggested that Apple is readying a bunch of generative AI “superpowers” for its virtual assistant Siri, even as it rushes to catch up with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini (previously Bard).
The iPhone maker seems to have cracked the code on integrating a powerful large language model called Ajax into Siri without compromising on its core tenets of privacy, might we add. In theory, this means, it may be possible to run powerful AI models, like the ones behind ChatGPT, on the iPhone very soon.
Its purported open-source Ferret model can apparently juggle different types of data like OpenAI’s GPT-4 even as tools like MLX for MacBooks powered by its homegrown silicon, could pave the way for AI tools to work much more seamlessly on them.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has emphasised that artificial intelligence is already at work in current Apple devices, like for instance, the newly launched M3-based MacBook Air is being marketed as the “world’s best consumer laptop for AI”, but forthcoming announcements could be even more practical, visible, and coming to iPhone, which is technically its most mass market product currently bringing the power and functionality of AI to a lot more people.
Reports also say that Apple is in talks with Google to onboard Gemini for running cloud-based applications. In China, Baidu could be a potential Google replacement for this. Speculation is also rife about an AI App store with better content curation. The possibilities, it seems, are boundless like the very nature of artificial intelligence itself.
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