Apple could bring boatload of AI features to iPhone with iOS 18

Apple's iOS 18 could bring AI and Generative AI features to users and developers

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who is usually quite accurate with Apple reporting, revealed in his Power On newsletter that iOS 18 will bring several AI and Generative AI features to compatible iPhones. Those AI-powered features include improved reply suggestions for messages and AI-generated playlists in Apple Music. Generative AI features could also come to Apple's document creation suite, which includes Keynote, Numbers, and Pages.

Apparently, Apple is also working on a smarter version of Siri to make it somewhat comparable to Google Assistant. The newsletter claims that bringing AI features is one of the primary objectives of Apple right now. The company is reportedly set to spend $1 billion every year on AI development. However, there appears to be some debate internally on whether to base these features on on-device AI or to offload them to Apple's servers.

Apart from user-facing features, Apple is reportedly planning to make the lives of developers easier through AI-enhanced features in Xcode. They could bring advanced code completion features similar to GitHub Copilot. Apple could also streamline some internal AppleCare tools using AI.

Author's Note: Apple, Google, and Samsung are all bringing AI and Generative AI features to their smartphones and tablets. These features could be effective in some scenarios but not in others. For example, Generative AI could be great for creating new stickers, expanding images, and removing objects from images and videos.

Samsung is also bringing Generative AI features to its TVs and appliances through Tizen. To power similar features to its smartphones, Samsung's upcoming flagship Exynos 2400 chipset features a lot faster NPU.