While major Android phone manufacturers are actively planning their own AI strategies and launching corresponding AI mobile phone products, Apple is still turning a deaf ear to the outside world and focusing only on making progress.
Apple is like a monk living in seclusion in the mountains, escaping from the new round of internal competition in the mobile phone industry. It was not until the convening of WWDC24 that Apple belatedly announced its own AI strategy.
Apple once disdained to use the word AI as a slogan for its products, and instead used terms such as Machine Learning, Neural Engine, and Bionic to refer to AI.
However, starting from this year's Apple Spring Conference, no matter which Apple executive introduced the product, he would always mention AI from time to time.
Apple seems to be implying that our AI is ready and the experience is definitely far superior to the so-called AI phones on the market.
Of course, it may also be that Apple is anxious. Seeing that other manufacturers have launched AI mobile phones one year in advance, it no longer has the first-mover advantage. If it wants to break through, it can only quietly carry out AI-related research and development work and strive to make a splash.
No matter what Apple’s idea is, Apple still released AI-related features of its own products at WWDC24.
Apple: Apple-style AI, think different
Perhaps because Apple mentioned AI too many times at this year's spring conference, which triggered a lot of negative news about Apple's AI lagging behind, Apple only mentioned AI once at WWDC24.
As expected, Apple officially announced its personal intelligence system, Apple Intelligence, at this year's WWDC. Apple said that all its devices will enter the next stage and they will create personalized AI devices.
What is personalized AI? It is easy to understand. Apple Intelligence automatically recognizes the information on the user's device and uses machine learning to make the AI in the device understand you better and better.
According to Apple, simple instructions can be run directly on the device, while overly complex instructions will be run in the cloud. In other words, Apple Intelligence will choose different processing methods based on the difficulty of the problem.
To further enhance the user experience, Apple has also worked with third-party AI companies to integrate ChatGPT into Siri.
When the questions asked by users are beyond the scope of Apple Intelligence, it will suggest that users ask ChatGPT to answer them. There is no need to download any APP, Siri can directly display the answers given by ChatGPT.
With the support of Apple Intelligence, Apple devices have realized many AI-related functions, such as the rewrite function. No matter how many incorrect sentences you have written or how poor your writing is, Apple Intelligence can help you correct and polish it.
Another example is genmoji, Apple Intelligence can generate corresponding emoji based on text description.
Thanks to Apple's powerful combination of software and hardware, Apple Intelligence can also help users beautify their handwriting. No matter how ugly your handwriting is, it can generate standard and beautiful handwriting.
It is said that there are only two outcomes for Apple: either it becomes the industry leader or it does the same thing better. Now it seems that this is true. Apple has indeed made some AI functions that are not available on the market, and Math Notes is a typical example.
As we all know, the large language models on the market always give wrong answers when answering math questions. However, Apple Intelligence can quickly calculate the correct answer. This shows that Apple's AI is not lagging behind, and the functions derived from the large language model are also combined with the actual usage scenarios of users.
Unlike other manufacturers, Apple did not make a separate AI assistant app for mobile phones/tablets and other devices, but quietly integrated AI into each app.
For example, with the text-based diagram feature in iPadOS 18’s memo, users need to use Apple Pencil to draw a circle in the blank area or sketch of the note. In this way, Apple Intelligence will automatically recognize the content of the note and generate corresponding data charts or more beautiful pictures.
With the arrival of Apple Intelligence, Apple Photos has also undergone a comprehensive upgrade.
The moment the user opens it, the AI built into the Apple device has already classified all the photos in detail, including year, travel, pets, friends, etc. You can even use Spotlight to search for keywords, and the corresponding photos will soon appear on the screen.
Of course, questions like search can also be handled by Siri, and users only need to say keywords.
Compared with Apple's Apple Intelligence, Android manufacturers like to integrate almost all AI functions into one APP. If users want to experience a certain AI function, they must open that exclusive AI APP. It seems that they want to convey to users that we also have AI assistants like ChatGPT. The experience feels a bit fragmented.
Apple’s idea is that when users want to use an app, the AI function has already been integrated into the APP, and users no longer need to open an independent AI APP. The whole experience is very "unconscious", which will make users feel that this function is natural, rather than a function created by AI for the sake of AI.
Therefore, when Apple is conceiving AI functions related to Apple Intelligence, it puts user experience and interaction logic first.
Even for Siri, which is powered by AI, Apple has made it invisible. Now Siri no longer has a physical icon, but is displayed in the form of a colored halo.
It is easy to understand why Apple does this. It wants users to feel that Siri, Apple Intelligence, and iPhone are all one and the same. If Siri becomes smarter, the iPhone also becomes smarter.
Siri: I don’t know how to chat
Compared to before, Siri does understand human language better, but this does not mean that Siri is a chat tool.
We all know that many AI language models now have chat functions, and even various personalities. Judging from the press conference, Apple does not intend to develop Siri's chat capabilities, but focuses on making it a true personal assistant for users.
If you have any to-do items, Siri can help you solve them, such as planning the best itinerary, finding things that you can't remember clearly, etc. The original intention of the birth of intelligent assistants is to help users solve problems and simplify things.
Siri was once called "artificial idiot" by netizens, but Siri is very capable of completing some simple commands and gives clear and concise answers.
In comparison, the smart assistants of Android manufacturers are powerful, but they seem bloated and many of their functions are dispensable. From a functional perspective, Apple is more practical and efficient, while Android manufacturers are more focused on entertainment.
Free from worldly affairs? Not exist
After watching the entire press conference, to be honest, Apple did not bring us too many surprises. Although some AI functions are not available on the market, this is not enough to make people exclaim Wow~. Instead, we saw many functions similar to those of its competitors, such as AI division, smart summary, voice photo editing, etc.
The Apple that once changed the world, the Apple that first launched a smart assistant for mobile phones, and the Apple that added AI functions to its device apps a long time ago, is also unable to escape the shabby status after shedding layer after layer of halo.
