In his latest “Power On” newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says this past week Apple took the wraps off Apple Intelligence for the first time, giving developers an early preview at the suite of new artificial intelligence (AI) features. He says here are the features in the first beta version:
° The software offers brief suggested replies to texts in the Messages app, but the capability is just a slightly upgraded version of the reply suggestions that have long existed. Mail has more extensive reply suggestions.
° There’s a new section in the Mail app that shows messages the system believes are high-priority, alongside summaries of emails.
° It summarizes text messages and emails within notifications, rather than just giving a stream of the missed texts and emails themselves.
° A new Reduce Interruptions Focus mode essentially serves as a Do Not Disturb option, while still letting through important notifications (like what appears to be an urgent text message, smart home alert or email).
° There’s the ability to record a phone call and then have it automatically transcribed and summarized. Transcriptions are also in the voice memos app, but that has been present since earlier iOS 18 betas.
° You get one-paragraph summaries of web pages and articles when Reader Mode is activated in Safari.
° You can create a movie of photos and videos within the Photos app using a text prompt.
° Writing Tools, a set of features that activate when you highlight text, can turn paragraphs into lists or tables, summarize and make text more concise, proofread passages and rewrite content in different tones.
° Finally, there’s the long-anticipated new Siri interface. It has a new animation glow that surrounds the device’s screen and the ability to double-tap on the bottom of an iPhone or iPad to activate the “Type to Siri” option. There’s also the ability to better maintain context across queries.
Apple Intelligence features will be rolling out slowly this year. In fact, users will have to wait until 2025 to see the fully revamped Siri.
This info from Gurman is from the free edition of “Power On”. If you like it, consider subscribing to Bloomberg.com—you’ll receive the newsletter earlier and get exclusive access to a Q&A section.
