I don’t rush to break a story because I hope the value I bring is analysis. I’m glad I waited to review the major announcements around Apple’s WWDC because most interesting details were not in the headlines.
Let’s hit the big ones; then, I’ll highlight the ones I noticed. So, for a summary,
Apple’s WWDC 2024 keynote featured the introduction of Apple Intelligence, an AI system for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Siri also received significant AI upgrades and integration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Other highlights include new AI features in Mail, Messages, Photos, and more, a more customizable Control Center in iOS 18, RCS support for iPhone, and a new Passwords app.
iPadOS 18 adds a calculator app with Apple Pencil support, macOS 15 allows iPhone to be mirrored on Mac, and watchOS 11 brings new features like automatic widget addition and the Vitals app. VisionOS 2 introduces spatial photos and an ultrawide Mac display. Airpods Pro gets Siri Interactions and Voice Isolation.
Apple Intelligence is positioned as “AI For the rest of us,” a kindler and gentler version of AI that powers useful features like prioritizing notifications. Unlike other AI demonstrations, Apple’s presentation was practical and familiar. Apple Intelligence can perform simple functions like pulling up flight details or helping revise emails. It can also sort emails, prioritize notifications, and enable a “reduce notifications” mode. It can also be used in image generation. Apple Intelligence AI can retrieve and analyze relevant data from across your apps and reference the content on your screen. It can understand personal information and context, such as recognizing family members and event details and predicting traffic for route planning.
Apple has announced AI additions to its Xcode development environment, aiming to increase the productivity of programmers. The AI features can undertake small and tedious coding tasks, including incorporating AI-powered features into developer apps and adding generative intelligence for code completion in the Swift language.
And a small note – the largest cheer at the event went to the release of a Calculator app for the iPad as part of iPadOS 18. The app supports Apple Pencil and includes a feature called Math Notes for solving handwritten math problems. iPadOS 18 also includes Smart Script for improved handwriting legibility and personalization updates from iOS 18.
Why do we care?
People love that calculator. I did want to call out that Password app, as there will be a new player in password management that users may quickly migrate to. Lots of feature stuff – there’s a lot I’m interested in. That said, we care because Apple’s AI strategy bakes the technology right into the operating system, and this fall, it will be on all Macs with Apple Silicon. Between that and CoPilot, the technology will soon be available to many of your customers. Ask yourself… are you ready? Are your customers ready? And if not, what are you going to do about it?