Apple has just released new updates for iPhones, iPads, and Macs, bringing the second wave of Apple Intelligence features to its hardware ecosystem. The iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 stable builds are now rolling out for users globally. Leading the charge is ChatGPT integration with Siri, which now lets users offload their queries to the OpenAI chatbot if Apple’s virtual assistant can’t answer them. Users can also get ChatGPT to process files like images and PDFs so that it can answer queries based on the content of those files.
Advertisement
Siri gets a neat visual upgrade, from a fresh launch animation to a redesigned keyboard interface for text queries. The virtual assistant has also ingested the large swathe of Apple product guides, and will now directly assist users with step-by-step guidance, ending the hassle of doing a Google search. Apple is even bringing generative AI smarts to its Mail app, which now automatically categorizes emails across categories like priority messages, offers summaries of email chains, and a Smart Reply feature for crafting refined responses.
Another notable addition is Notification summaries. This feature clubs together notifications from the same app, bundles them under a single banner, and then provides a concise summary of automated actions as well as conversations. The Photos app, which has received a lot of flak for its controversial redesign, is getting natural language search capabilities. Instead of tags or identifiers, it can now process queries in natural language and offer search results.
Advertisement
AI across the board
The more noteworthy addition to Photos is a memory feature, which creates a montage of pictures that tie into a theme, such as “pet cat playing with a ball,” while also adding background music to it. OpenAI’s GPT architecture will also lend a hand with Writing Tools, a system-wide implementation that performs tasks like proofreading, style adjustment, rewriting, and more. It will be available within in-house tools like Notes and third-party apps. It can also tap into AI image generation and create pictures based on text prompts.
Advertisement
On a similar note, Apple is rolling out its own image creation stack in its new Image Playground app, which helps users with quick templates and edit presets to create fun images from their photo gallery. Apple is also bringing its own AI-powered take on custom emojis to iPhones and iPads (and soon on Macs, as well) called Genmojis. Users can create them on the fly using text-to-image descriptions or contact pictures of the person they’re chatting with.
Another cool visual trick is Image Wand, which is bundled within the Apple Pencil palette and can turn rough sketches into polished artwork or schematics. The most notable addition, perhaps, is Visual Intelligence — think of it as Apple’s take on Google Lens, with some help from ChatGPT. All you need to do is point the camera at any object, and it will handle chores like summarizing the in-frame text, pulling up details like reviews and opening hours for a business, intelligently identifying contact details, performing language translation, and even searching Google for relevant results.
Advertisement
