As usual in previous years, Apple will announce iOS 18 at the WWDC 2024 conference in June next year; after more than three months of testing and polishing, it will be adapted to all compatible iPhone models in September next year.
Major new features

In the latest issue of the “Power On” newsletter, Mark Gurman said that Apple internally calls iOS 18 “ambitious and compelling” and aims to bring a series of “significant new features and designs” to iOS 18. ” along with significant improvements in performance and security.

Details about the new features are unclear, but there is no doubt that iOS 18 is more like a major version update than iOS15, iOS 16 and iOS 17.
A smarter Siri

Apple is using large language models (LLMs) to completely transform Siri into the “ultimate virtual assistant” and prepare to develop it into the “most powerful killer AI app.”

It is reported that Apple, like Samsung, is focused on running on the device side and cooperating with the cloud to implement related AI services. This is because AI running locally has a faster response time, does not require a network connection, and is more private.

Apple has publicly stated its interest in generative artificial intelligence and has stepped up its hiring efforts in recent months, with several positions mentioning AI technology.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview with Forbes in September:

 If you look carefully at what we do in terms of AI and machine learning, and how we use them, these are the "foundational technologies" that are integral to every product we produce.

 For example, our iOS 17 includes features such as personal voice and real-time voicemail, and AI is the core of these features. You can also learn more about a range of "life-saving" features on your watch and phone, such as fall detection, car accident detection and EKG on your watch. Without AI, these capabilities would not be possible.

 Artificial intelligence and machine learning are used behind these functions, but we do not deliberately use the words "AI" to promote them because in our promotion we hope to bring more valuable functions to them from the perspective of consumers.

Support RCS to improve communication with Android users

An Apple spokesperson recently confirmed to TechRadar and 9to5Mac that it will adapt to support the Rich Communications Services/Converged Communications (RCS) standard next year.

Apple’s statement as follows:

 Later next year, we will add support for the RCS Common Profile, a standard currently published by the GSM Association.

 We believe that the RCS universal profile will provide a better interoperability experience compared to SMS or MMS.

 We believe that RCS and iMessage, used together, will continue to provide Apple users with the best and most secure messaging experience.

Although next year’s iPhone will support RCS, RCS messages will still be displayed as green bubbles, while iMessage will be displayed in blue to distinguish them.

After Apple iPhone adds support for RCS, it can improve information exchange with Android models. The improvements include:

 Higher resolution photos and videos

 Audio SMS

 Input status indicator

 read receipt

 Wi-Fi messaging between iPhone and Android devices

 Improved group chat, improving the ability to hold conversations for iPhone and Android users

 Improved security through encryption compared to traditional text messages (SMS)

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Tim Cook has previously claimed that Apple has been working on generative AI technology for years, but Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman made it clear that’s simply not the case in his latest Power On newsletter.

Last year, when OpenAI’s ChatGPT took off like a rocket, Apple basically did nothing. They’ve watched as Google and Microsoft launched search engines and other products based on generative AI, while Apple’s only focus on AI was the improved autocorrect system in iOS 17.

A person familiar with the matter said: “(Apple) is very anxious about this and internally believes that this is a quite big mistake.” Apple executives were caught off guard by the sudden burst of AI craze in the industry and have been working hard to make up for the loss since the end of last year. Opportunity.

As Gurman mentioned in July, the company has just created its own large-scale language model Ajax and launched a chatbot called “Apple GPT” within the company. The key next step is to determine whether the technology can cope with competitors, and how Apple will apply it to its products.

He also revealed that John Giannandrea and Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice presidents for AI and software engineering, are leading the effort and are on Cook’s team. Known as the “executive sponsor” driven by generative AI.

Apple services chief Eddie Cue is also said to be involved. The three now plan to invest approximately US$1 billion per year in this undertaking (currently approximately 7.32 billion yuan).

Currently, Giannandria is overseeing the development of the underlying technology for the new AI system, and his team is deeply revamping Siri to make it happen.

Gurman believes that this smarter Siri assistant won’t be ready until next year at the earliest, but there are still concerns within Apple about the technology, and it may take longer for Apple’s AI capabilities to become widespread across its product line.

Meanwhile, Federighi’s software engineering team is adding AI to iOS 18, and there’s a mandate to include features that run on the company’s Large Language Model (LLM), which leverages vast amounts of data to hone the AI. ability. The new features are said to further improve the ability of Siri and Messages apps to answer questions and self-complete sentences, similar to competing products.

Apple’s software engineering team is also considering integrating generative AI into development tools such as Xcode, a move that may help app developers write new apps faster. This is consistent with services such as Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot, so Apple can currently It is said that it is completely lagging behind, even more than a year behind.

Additionally, Cue’s team is working to add AI to as many applications as possible. For example, the team is exploring adding new AI features to Apple Music, including automatic playlist generation (Spotify has already launched this feature in partnership with OpenAI), as well as the company’s productivity apps.

Cue’s team is said to be researching how to use generative AI to help users have a better experience in apps like Pages. Likewise, Microsoft has rolled out similar features for its Word and PowerPoint apps.

He also mentioned that Apple is also testing generative AI capabilities for internal customer service applications in its AppleCare division.

In addition, there is a very critical point in Apple’s internal debate about generative AI, that is, how to deploy generative AI, whether to run entirely locally on the device, or to adopt a cloud-based setup, or something in between. between.

As we all know, native support on the device is undoubtedly the fastest way and helps protect privacy, but cloud LLM enables more advanced operations.

Gurman believes Apple will likely take a hybrid approach, or a compromise where some functions are handled locally on the device while some more advanced tasks are handled in the cloud.

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Siri is Apple’s virtual assistant that helps users complete a variety of tasks with voice commands. In previous versions of iOS, if a user wanted to send a message using Siri, they had to specify which app they wanted to use, such as “Send a message with WeChat. If they didn’t, Siri would default to Apple’s Messages app.

But in iOS 17, users can easily choose which app to use before sending a message. This feature supports any Siri-compatible app. In addition to choosing an app, users can also more easily tap to modify contacts and edit message content.

As previously reported, iOS 17 has several other new features, including more options for customizing the lock screen, improved iMessage and FaceTime, standby mode, interactive widgets and NameDrop.

iOS 17 is currently open for beta testing only for developers, and Apple says a public beta will be available this summer, with the full version expected to be released this fall.

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Apple plans to change this in the iOS 17 system, allowing third-party multimedia apps to play multimedia from iPhone or iPad on HomePod by calling Siri.

Apple stated at the WWDC 2023 Developers Conference that even if third-party applications do not have native support for HomePod, they can also call the SiriKit API to allow users to play HomePod through Siri.

After HomePod processes the request, SiriKit will send the relevant request to the iPhone or iPad, and Siri will start your application, which will be transmitted to HomePod through AirPlay.

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The update also adds iPad compatibility, so the app can make better use of the large iPad screen. Drag-and-drop support has also been added, so you can now drag and drop individual messages into other apps.

The ChatGPT app is still only available for iOS, and it’s unknown when the Android version will go live.

At WWDC23, Apple announced that you now only need to say “Siri” to wake up Siri, instead of saying “Hey”, but Siri’s other features don’t seem to have been enhanced.

The post ChatGPT app for iOS updated to support Siri and add shortcut commands appeared first on TechGoing.

Gurman reiterated the news on Twitter, saying the change could be one of the big announcements at the conference next week. Last November, Gurman reported that Apple was working on enabling Siri to understand and respond to commands that don’t require “Hey, Siri” as a trigger word. The difficulty with this technology is that Siri needs to be able to accurately recognize the word “Siri” in different accents and dialects, and using two words — “Hey, Siri” — can increase the likelihood that the system will correctly capture the signal. can improve the likelihood that the system will correctly capture the signal.

The change will bring Siri closer to Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa, which can be triggered by simply saying “Alexa” at the beginning of a command. Gurman also said that Apple is also working to make Siri more deeply integrated with third-party apps and services, using more contextual information to provide better assistance.

In addition, Apple’s mixed reality headset is rumored to feature voice control, so improving Siri’s performance could go hand-in-hand with the release of the new device.

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Former Apple engineer John Burkey, who was tasked with improving Siri in 2014, left Apple in 2016. He said Siri’s clunky design made it difficult to add new features.

Burkey said Siri was able to answer simple questions like “What’s the weather today?” or “Can you play this song?” by pulling information from a database that stored a lot of words like restaurant locations or musicians’ names. That leaves Siri with a limited number of requests to respond to, he said, and engineers have to keep adding new words to the database to expand its capabilities.

Burkey admits that Apple Siri’s database is “a big snowball,” and adding new words can take up to six weeks because engineers need to overhaul the database, and if it’s integrating advanced features like Chatgpt, such as search, it could even take about a year. Even updating Siri’s basic features could take weeks, because Apple Siri’s code is outdated and complex, Burkey said.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Right now, especially after OpenAI upgraded its large language model to GPT-4, ChatGPT, the popular artificial intelligence chatbot, is threatening voice assistant technology with new features that people are enthusiastic about.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who recently invested another $10 billion in OpenAI, has said that voice assistants like Apple Siri and Amazon Alexa are “dumb as a rock.

Adam Cheyer, co-founder of Apple Siri, agreed with this statement. He also said that ChatGPT’s ability to automatically write articles and develop code makes existing voice assistants on the market look silly. Cheyer said, “The previous capabilities were just too chickenshit.”

Apple Siri users have noticed this, too, and have expressed their discontent, asking questions like “Why is Siri so dumb?” and “Is Siri getting dumber every year?

But Siri isn’t the only voice assistant in trouble. Last November, it was reported that Amazon’s Alexa division was operating at a loss of more than $3 billion for the year, and was only maintaining a presence.

“Alexa was a huge failure of imagination,” said one former Amazon employee, “and the opportunities were wasted.”

Former Amazon and Google managers revealed that, like Amazon, Google has found itself struggling to generate significant revenue from its voice assistant. However, both Amazon and Google Inc. said they will continue to build their own voice assistant features.

Employees of Apple’s Siri team have reportedly been testing artificial intelligence language models, though no products have been released yet.

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In its latest Power On newsletter, Gurman said Apple is working on a way for Siri to understand phrases and commands without using the “Hey Siri” trigger phrase, which would simply say “Siri. The change is expected to be introduced sometime in 2023 or 2024, Gurman said.

“Apple is making a move to drop the “Hey trigger phrase” so that users can just say “Siri” – along with the together with the command. While this may seem like a small change, making the switch is a technical challenge that requires a lot of AI training and basic engineering work.”

The complexity involves Siri’s ability to understand the singular phrase “Siri” in many different accents and dialects. Currently, two words, “Hey Siri,” increase the likelihood that the system will receive the signal correctly.

Gurman also reported today that Apple is working to further integrate Siri into third-party services and apps to provide users with more context and assistance.

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