Over the past year, artificial intelligence is what every tech company is talking about. But Apple hasn’t said anything all that specific about AI, except that it has big plans for WWDC and makes the “World’s Best Consumer Laptop for AI” in the M3 MacBook Air. And it will remind you that it’s been shipping AI features for years, just calling it machine learning.
However, while Apple will clearly embrace the term AI at this year’s keynote, it sounds as if the company sees a bigger marketing opportunity. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the company is going to refer to its AI feature set as “Apple Intelligence,” which is the most Apple thing ever.
Apple Intelligence features will be throughout iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15, and according to Gurman, one key characteristic of these features, especially the chatbot, is that users will have to opt-in to use them. So, if you rather not, you don’t have to.
Gurman also reports that even if you do want to opt in, you need to meet the hardware requirements, which are steep—iPhone 15 Pro or later. iPads and Macs will need at least an M1 chip or later. Apple Intelligence features will mostly be processed on the device, which is different from other platforms where AI processing is done in the cloud. But Apple Intelligence will be able to determine if cloud processing is needed and will use it when appropriate.
Apple Intelligence is expected to comprise about half of the WWDC keynote content. The keynote starts at 10 a.m. PT on June 10 and can be watched live through various channels. Apple will also post the keynote on the Apple Events website for viewing at any time after the live presentation. How to watch the WWDC24 keynote live.
For more information about WWDC, check out our continuing coverage ahead of Monday’s keynote:
Author: Roman Loyola, Senior Editor, Macworld
Roman is a Macworld Senior Editor with over 30 years of experience covering the tech industry, focusing on the Mac and other products in the Apple ecosystem. He is also the host of the Macworld Podcast. His career started at MacUser, where he received Apple certification as a repair technician (when Apple did that kind of thing). He's also worked for MacAddict, MacLife, and TechTV.