AI-Infused iOS 18 Lauded as 'Ambitious and Compelling' by Apple Execs

[MacRumors]

Apple internally believes its iOS 18, macOS 15, watchOS 11, and tvOS 18 updates next year will be "ambitious and compelling," thanks to major new software features and designs in the works for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Mac. That's according to the latest information relayed by Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman.

While little is known about the specifics, many of the changes are believed to involve generative AI, including a smarter version of Siri that takes the virtual assistant's integration with the operating systems to a new level. According to the leaker @Tech_Reve, Apple is relying on large-language models (LLMs) to completely revamp Siri and make it the "ultimate virtual assistant" and "Apple's most powerful killer AI app."

Apple is reportedly working on revamped interaction between ‌Siri‌ and the Messages app, enabling users to field complex questions and auto-complete sentences more effectively, according to Gurman. We may also see auto-generated Apple Music playlists and integration with productivity apps like Pages and Keynote, such as AI-assisted writing and slide deck creation.

Apple is said to be on course to spend $1 billion per year on AI research, with some of the company's biggest executive names overseeing development. Indeed, Gurman says the company is "racing to catch up with Google and OpenAI" in the generative AI space, and with few major iPhone 16 hardware advances on the cards next year, the stakes are even higher. As a result, Gurman believes iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 could be "groundbreaking" relative to updates in the last few years.

With so much riding on the outcome, however, Apple is said to be taking a particularly cautious approach to its software development. Recently we learned that all development on future features was paused within Apple to allow its engineers to work solely on improving the existing software.

According to Gurman, Apple last month finished the first "M1" versions of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15, but the software engineering management team found too many bugs that were missed in internal testing, so a week was set aside to address the issues. Development has since resumed, but Apple is still said to be debating whether to deploy its new generative AI technology via the cloud, as an on-device experience, or a mixture of both.

Apple is expected to reveal its LLM-powered version of Siri at WWDC 2024 during its iOS 18 developer preview, although other generative AI features it is working on could be exclusive to iPhone 16 models and therefore may not be revealed until Apple launches its next-generation flagship smartphones in September 2024.

Article Link: AI-Infused iOS 18 Lauded as 'Ambitious and Compelling' by Apple Execs

 

[Motawa]

What I REALLY want them to fix is this "waiting for animation to end"-bs.
It's really annoying. I know the phone can be faster. For example when you wake the phone and want to quickly swipe to the widgets on the lock screen, you always have to wait like a second/it's unresponsive for a second. I know I am the only one maybe but it's so annoying. Its in other places to. I think my a17 pro could handle it a bit faster.

 

[alanvitek]

Curious to see Apple’s take on LLM features. If we’re talking about deep integration not just between apps but also between devices that could be huge

 

[Kylo83]

They will try and fail and say we delayed new features to next year and get another minor iOS update like the last few years

 

[sunapple]

I used Siri the other day to add butter to my grocery list and it worked. The last time I tried to use Siri was about a year ago and that time it didn’t work at all. So if by iOS 18 they could improve it even further I’d be very impressed indeed. Progress!

 

[Tuck_]

I expect it will be heavy on gimicky AI tools and light on much needed UI improvements. Hope I'm wrong though.

 

[abatabia]

Just fix the bugs. Please. No one cares about any of this. Make it reliable and not drain battery. Please and thank you.

 

[antiprotest]

Can't wait for Siri to get even better at saying "Here's what I found on the web."

 

[Shasterball]

"While little is known about the specifics, many of the changes are believed to involve generative AI, including a smarter version of Siri that takes the virtual assistant's integration with the operating systems to a new level."

Well, being that Siri is literally at Level 0 and has not noticeably improved in a decade, that's a pretty modest goal (and that's me being extremely flattering).

 

[Jay Tee]

It's all good. Just don't artificially limit features to the latest iPhones, or Pro models.

 

[Sorinut]

More offline, please! I just want things to work without having to go out to the net. Set timers, call people, send a text, etc. I don't want to have a conversation with my iPhone.

I know a lot of people go nuts got chatgpt and the like, but I can't find any use for it other than making Excel macros.

 

[krspkbl]

I'll just be happy if Siri becomes worth using.

That said I'll be interested in what Apple can do with all that $ they are sitting on. OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia have done a lot with AI but what can Apple, the richest tech company on the planet, do?

And them taking their time is good news. No more buggy releases please!!

 

[idmean]

According to Gurman, Apple last month finished the first "M1" versions of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15, but the software engineering management team found too many bugs that were missed in internal testing, so a week was set aside to address the issues. Development has since resumed

This paragraph is highly enlightning to me. So Apple engineers the software for each chip separately? They first build the OS for M1, then M2, then M3? That's not going to scale well. Also the "software engineering management team" is searching for bugs themselves? No quality assurance team? That explains a lot... Also that fixing bugs is not part of development explains why Apple often doesn't fix bugs for years...

 

[psxp]

ha, maybe they will use Siri to call Google API to do the tasks..

Everytime I try to use Siri it fails miserably. And I'm asking basic tasks/questions.

Lets see what they can do.

 

[neuropsychguy]

Just fix the bugs. Please. No one cares about any of this. Make it reliable and not drain battery. Please and thank you.

I care about it, so that's at least one person in the world.

 

[rocknrollme]

We're getting reports like this one every year. And still Siri messes up basic calculator type queries all the time. They're like 10 years behind the competition in the AI space.

 

[adrianjagielak]

This paragraph is highly enlightning to me. So Apple engineers the software for each chip separately? They first build the OS for M1, then M2, then M3? That's not going to scale well. Also the "software engineering management team" is searching for bugs themselves? No quality assurance team? That explains a lot... Also that fixing bugs is not part of development explains why Apple often doesn't fix bugs for years...

M1 in this context = Milestone 1

 

[mazz0]

I expect it will be heavy on gimicky AI tools and light on much needed UI improvements. Hope I'm wrong though.

Me too. This whole things sounds like starting with a solution and then looking for a problem to solve with it.

 

[krspkbl]

It's all good. Just don't artificially limit features to the latest iPhones, or Pro models.

I get what you're saying but AI is really demanding so they might need to limit it to new models. 8GB RAM on the iPhone 15 Pro Max might not be enough depending what features Apple is going to add. I'll be interested to see what kind of RAM the iPhone 16 Pro models come with next year.

Of course, Apple could just send everything to their servers to process instead of doing it on device.

But your point...yeah I hope they can bring as many features as possible to all supported devices. We'll see.

 

[jz0309]

looks like I will wait a long time to upgrade to iOS 18, unless I get an iPhone 16 which Gurman said in this newsletter will on.y get minor updates ...

 

[fwmireault]

If the stuff announced on October 30th deserved a full Apple event, I think it’s fair to say that what Apple execs consider ambitious might be a bit of a stretch

 

[hancox]

1) Can we add "courageous" to get Apple BS Bingo?
2) How about the first AI bit being not needing the $#^%#%^@ing internet to do basic voice recognition? Shouldn't need it to make calls / etc.

 

[mazz0]

I care about it, so that's at least one person in the world.

Not being argumentative here, genuine question: what is it your care about? Can you give an example of something good you think it might do? I'd like to be excited, but like another poster said I fear it's just going to be gimmicky crap.

 

[bollman]

Apple Maps all over again, anyone?

 

[CopyChief]

What I REALLY want them to fix is this "waiting for animation to end"-bs.
It's really annoying. I know the phone can be faster. For example when you wake the phone and want to quickly swipe to the widgets on the lock screen, you always have to wait like a second/it's unresponsive for a second. I know I am the only one maybe but it's so annoying. Its in other places to. I think my a17 pro could handle it a bit faster.

I turned reduce motion on years ago and haven't looked back, and it does not reduce functionality at all. It makes the phone feel so much faster (IMHO).