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So, there we have it, the WWDC keynote is done and dusted for another year and, as always, there’s a shed load of stuff to talk about.
It was a fascinating event, not least because the updates to each operating system were comparatively tempered to what we’ve seen in recent years. It felt like a decent spring clean as opposed to an up-sticks-and-move game changer. As someone noted during my WWDC reaction livestream last night, WWDC this year was full of “finally” moments.
Yes, including a calculator for the iPad. Finally.
However, Apple had something in its back pocket – Apple Intelligence. In one fell swoop, they cheekily claimed the acronym which has dominated tech over the last eighteen months and revealed the real update to its operating systems this year.
The real question, however, is: will Apple Intelligence bring me back to the iPhone (if you weren’t aware, I switched to the S24 ultra a couple of months ago)?
iOS 18 won’t bring me back
This is, clearly, one of the most conservative iOS updates in recent years.
Strip away Apple Intelligence, and we get the ability to place app icons anywhere on the Home Screen, multiple control centres, the ability to lock and ‘hide’ apps, RCS support, and a new Photos app.
There’s other stuff, of course. If you live somewhere that has access to Apple Cash, you can tap your phone against someone else’s to send money their way without exchanging personal details, Mail has turned into Gmail with on-device categorisation of messages, and there’s Game Mode for anyone who takes that kind of thing seriously.
Would any of this stuff swing me from Android back to iOS? No, I’m afraid not. That isn’t a dig at Apple, either – what more can they do with iOS beyond giving the existing features a good fettle and a sprinkle of “finally” functionality?
iOS 18 looks like it’s going to be a fantastic operating system and iOS is something I miss, to a degree, each day. But it hasn’t been enough to pull me away from the grip of the S24 Ultra.
For that, I need a far better reason to switch back. Yesterday, there were two potential reasons – and they were, admittedly, pretty big.
Reason 1: Deeper Mac integration
The only element I miss seriously from my iPhone is the integration it has with the Mac. Before I switched to the S24 Ultra I would regularly send stuff from my Mac to my iPhone and vice-versa.
This reliance came in two forms. The first was media transfer; whether I needed to send a freshly exported frame from a video to my iPhone for an Instagram post, or transfer some footage shot on my iPhone to the Mac for editing in Final Cut Pro, the ability to do so via AirDrop is unmatched.
Yes, I know there are workarounds with the S24 Ultra, but they’re workarounds. I hate workarounds.
Imagine, therefore, how I felt yesterday when Apple introduced iPhone Mirroring in macOS Sequoia. This enables you to call up your iPhone on your Mac’s display and use it just as you would if you had it in your hand. Everything works – you can swipe around your Home Screen and open and use apps. While doing this, your iPhone remains locked and therefore inaccessible by anyone else, and it even works when the phone is in StandBy mode.
That alone is cool, and something I feel like I’d use regularly, but then Craig Federighi showed us that you can also copy content from your Mac to the mirrored iPhone (he didn’t show us it working the other way, but I’m hoping it does). Now reimagine that scenario where I need to transfer an image from my Mac to my iPhone for an Instagram post – with iPhone Mirroring, I could undertake the entire process on my Mac without ever picking up the iPhone. It might not sound like much, but when your job is content creation, the time saved during such processes is colossal over a week.
Aside from the mirroring feature, you can also have iOS notifications appear on your Mac, which is yet another step towards what is basically a completely integrated phone and laptop setup.
Dammit. This is getting really interesting.
It gets worse. Sorry – better.
Reason 2: Apple Intelligence
Apple is calling Apple Intelligence a “personal intelligence system”. They’ve been working towards this vision for years, we’re told – the unique marriage of Apple hardware and software and the power of the M series chips has led to this moment.
There’s an awful lot to unpack here, and I haven’t had enough time (or sleep) to delve too deeply today, but I am extremely interested in what Apple Intelligence means for Siri on the iPhone.
Let’s not beat around the bush – Siri, in its current form, is awful. For years now, we’ve demanded updates to its capabilities and usefulness, but nothing has been forthcoming. The emergence of Apple Intelligence may just reveal why we’ve been waiting so long – as some predicted in the lead-up to the WWDC keynote, this represents the biggest upgrade to Siri ever. Apple wasn’t ready to do anything with its personal assistant until all of the pieces fell into place, which now appears to have happened, big time.
Apple Intelligence isn’t an Apple-branded version of ChatGPT (although they have partnered with Sam Altman’s company – that’s for another day). Nor is it Apple’s take on Galaxy AI. It’s built on the assumption that what we really want from AI is the ability to gain answers to stuff that relates directly to our lives. No other AI platform out there can do this. ChatGPT doesn’t know what your mum sent you via text last week, and Galaxy AI hasn’t got a clue what’s going on in your email inbox, or how one of those messages might relate to your sister’s upcoming birthday party. Apple Intelligence, apparently, knows all of that stuff – and it isn’t out to steal your data and share it with others.
Apple wanted to build its intelligence system to be powerful, intuitive, integrated, personal, and private. Those five words sum up Apple – in fact, it’s what Apple does at its best. It’s why they referred to Apple Intelligence yesterday as “intelligence that understands you” – that’s all we want as users, isn’t it?
The net result of this is that we should end up with a Siri with whom we can have incredibly natural, useful conversations. I’m all for that. I’ve never been a big Siri user because of it’s awfulness, but also because I’m incredibly old-fashioned when it comes to finding things on my phone or reminding myself of how one thing relates to another; put simply, I need bringing out of the dark ages, and Apple Intelligence appears to be the first AI platform that feels ultimately tempting to use.
This is the main reason I’ll be so tempted to switch back to the iPhone. Possibly.
Wrapping up
Hold your horses – I’m not switching back just yet. In fact, I’m not convinced I will, full-time. Changing phones is an absolute faff – particularly when you have so many connected devices and services on the one you’re using.
To return to the iPhone, I need to be fully committed to all of the new possibilities we’ve seen this week at WWDC. I’m halfway there, but this is something I’ll watch with interest, rather than diving straight in.
For Apple Intelligence to pull me back into the iOS fold, it needs to deliver, and although the bar has been set incredibly low by Siri, expectations in this AI-driven world are incredibly high.
What a year we have ahead!
