Apple Intelligence was the main talk of Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024, that was hosted last week. The Cupertino-based tech giant announced a large number of new artificial intelligence (AI) features and capabilities for its operating systems. However, a new report claims that some of these features will not be ready when iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia are globally released later this year. Some of these features, especially those involving the virtual assistant Siri, might even take till 2025 before they are rolled out widely to users.
Some Apple Intelligence features could be delayed
According to a report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter, Apple is not planning to roll out some of the AI features till late 2024 and early 2025. The recent release of the first developer beta of the operating software also points towards the same, as they lack several AI features. Gurman highlighted that the tech giant prefers to ship as many new features with the first developer beta as possible to let the developers have enough time to integrate the new experiences within their apps.
If the report is to be believed, not only will some of the features be delayed, but when they arrive, they will only be available in preview. This means only a select group of users will get access to the features first, and it will slowly be rolled out to a larger user base.
This new feature deployment strategy will reportedly bring several new benefits for Apple. Gurman claims that this staggered approach will allow the company to manage its resources better and not overwhelm staffers or compromise the features. Training the AI in different global languages is also a time-consuming challenge, and so is building out its Private Cloud Compute cloud infrastructure. Further, the report highlights this additional time might be used to address issues of AI hallucinations (chatbots providing nonsensical responses).
Finally, as previously reported, Apple is still looking for more third-party AI chatbot creators to integrate them into its platform. The company is reportedly in discussion with Google for its Gemini AI and with Anthropic for Claude AI. In China, where most of the international AI chatbots are not available, the tech giant is reportedly aiming to partner with Baidu and Alibaba.
Apple Intelligence features that could arrive in late 2024
Notably, the Mail app will get some of its AI capabilities only later this year. These features reportedly include the ability to categorise emails in different tabs such as newsletters, announcements, and shopping. Another feature dubbed Swift Assist, which is a cloud-based AI programming companion for Xcode, will only be available closer to the end of the year.
Apart from these, some non-AI features are also not likely to be present when iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia debut this fall. These reportedly include the Mac Virtual Display on Vision Pro, simultaneous live sports streaming in the Apple TV app, Home app support for the control of vacuum cleaners and monitor home electricity usage.
Apple Intelligence features said to arrive in 2025
Most of the new AI capabilities of Siri will not be available for users to play around with till the next year, as per Gurman. These reportedly include the contextual awareness and natural language responses, semantic indexing for Siri’s understanding of on-device content and personal data, integration with native apps, and computer vision that lets the virtual assistant read the presently opened screen.
However, several Apple Intelligence features will still be available with the first general release of the upcoming operating systems. These are said to include AI-powered prioritised notifications, AI summarising of webpages, voice memos, meeting notes, and email. Further, the systemwide Writing Tools, image generation, and the custom AI emoji creator Genmoji.
