Alongside the new way of numbering its operating systems, the bitten fruit brand also announced a power-ed up Apple Intelligence features. A lot of these are familiar, as they have been announced by other companies. But naturally, there are some that are unique to Apple devices, such as applications related to Genmoji.
But let’s start with the more useful ones, which is Live Translation. Though not the first to the party, Apple Intelligence now allows for automatic translations across its operating systems. Text translation is a given, but the company says it can be done as people are typing. Then there’s FaceTime and voice calls, where captions are provided live for the former, and the spoken translation is played out for the latter. This also applies to lyrics too.
Now we get to the one that’s more for fun than practical, which include Genmoji and Image Playground. For both, this involves using text prompts to generate an image, which can then be modified with more prompts. The latter goes further, tapping into ChatGPT for styles of images, like oil painting or vector art. Most of these are simply expansions of what was previously announced for iOS 18.2.
Then we get to Visual Intelligence, which is upgraded to have the ability to read your screen the way Google’s Circle To Search does. Naturally, Apple adds its own twist, as rather than just reading the screen, the feature does it in a way that looks more like taking a screenshot. You then have the usual options to Google search what you’ve selected, or dive deeper using ChatGPT, or even add events to your calendar if it detects one.
On Apple Watch and watchOS specifically, there’s now Workout Buddy which acts like a robotic trainer encouraging or praising you based on your workout data and fitness history. The company says that the generated voice has the “right energy, style, and tone”, but that’s arguable at best. All of this is delivered via a connected Bluetooth headphones, but you’ll need an iPhone that can do Apple Intelligence.
Finally, to round things out, the company says that Apple Intelligence can send you reminders based on info from your emails and other notes. Then There’s Apple Wallet, which can help you identify and summarise order tracking details. On the smaller scale, it can also suggest when a poll may be useful in your messages, though you probably don’t need any form of AI for that.
As for when these will be available, supported devices will be getting the in fall, which will probably coincide with the launch of this year’s batch of iPhones. Otherwise, it will be available to other devices with Apple Intelligence capabilities.
