Depending on the Apple device in your life and how recent it is, you may have access to the beginning of AI via Apple.
The year is almost over, and with it a good 365 days of technology brands and experts alike talking about the year’s hottest buzzword and trend: AI.
Two letters smushed together to mean “artificial intelligence” or even mere “machine learning”, 2024 has been all about computers and code helping us in ways we may not expect. Creating images from training, text from training, music from similar systems of training, and more recently, even managing to make websites and online apps from AI and trained models.
AI has been everywhere this year. It’s in computers and tablets and phones and even cars, but there’s been one company missing from it all: Apple.
Earlier in the year, Apple talked up what was coming with “Apple Intelligence”, a conspicuously named concept that looked like “AI” from an acronym or initialism standpoint, but was essentially the Apple equivalent. America saw it first, and it is rolling out to more of the rest of the world now as the year as the year winds down, with Australia in that bunch.
With iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS 15.2, select Apple devices are seeing support for AI inside their devices, or at least the beginning of it.
Officially, Apple Intelligence is being rolled out with localised English in Australia and New Zealand, as well as Canada, Ireland, South Africa, the UK, and the US which saw it first. You’ll still need a recent device to support the technology, and right now on the phone side of things, that is basically an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, or anything from this year’s iPhone 16 range.
Recent Macs running Apple Silicon will support the technology, as will a small amount of iPads, specifically this year’s iPad Air, iPad Mini, and of course, this year’s iPad Pro.
In terms of what Apple Intelligence does, think of it as an assist for aspects of what you use your phone, iPad, and computer for. The technology connects parts of Apple’s devices with OpenAI’s ChatGPT initially, but that will likely open up to other models and AI systems later down the track.
As it is now, access to ChatGPT is free for all who use Apple Intelligence, but those who pay for ChatGPT can use their subscriber accounts for improved features, such as model control.
Right now, ChatGPT can be used with writing tools, allowing messages and text creation on the iPhone, iPad, and macOS to benefit from a helping hand of an AI, if you so choose.
The writing tools include “Rewrite”, which will do as it says, rewriting the text and proofreading it in the process, working across Notes, Pages, Mail, and even the text messages of the Messages app.
Writing tools will also summarise on-screen text, and can give you the option to “Describe Your Change”, giving you a little more precise control when it comes to getting AI to make changes to your copy.
Summaries will also work with Mail and the Lock Screen, bringing together email and notification summaries, while the Notes and Phone apps can record and transcribe what was said, with summaries gathering to highlight points, as opposed to forcing you too read and revisit the whole thing.
It’s not just text, either.
Apple’s AI inclusions see supportive changes to the Photos app, so you can write what you’re searching for, and have the app understand the context of it, getting you closer to something that is potentially in your photo library. Memories will be enhanced to let you create movies in much the same way — describing what you want — while the Clean Up tool will let you wipe away elements of a photo, not unlike how it works with a Google Pixel phone.
Creating images out of nothing is also part of Apple Intelligence, with an “Image Playground” to let you dabble and have some fun, alongside making emoji in your image via Genmoji.
And there’s also the camera: grab your iPhone’s camera and Apple’s visual intelligence feature will be able to make use of the camera control on the iPhone 16 range to detect phone numbers, languages, emails, and more. It could even be used to understand maths problems.
In terms of trying it out, you’ll need recent devices to make it work, largely in the iPhone world. This year’s iPhones will do it, as will an iPad with an M1 chip or higher, including the M1 iPad Air and M2 iPad Pro before each was updated. And as for the Macs, we expect there will be more of those supported than phones, with support for Apple Intelligence on Macs going back as far as the M1 MacBook Air and any Mac since 2020.
