In 2023, generative AI is one of the big things smartphone companies are trying to implement in their products. Samsung is the latest to join this trend with the upcoming “Gauss” AI leaked with the S24 Series. Chipsets in 2024 flagships also have a heavy focus on AI. Both the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Exynos 2400 significantly boost AI performance.
Renowned tipster Mark Gurman said Apple might be joining this trend. According to the reports, Apple will introduce cutting-edge AI features with the upcoming iOS 18 update. However, some generative AI abilities might be exclusive to the iPhone 16 series. The update is said to include a “smarter version of Siri” and new LLM-based AI features.
Siri hasn’t received many improvements since its launch. This is because of Apple’s privacy-centric approach. Tools like Google Assistant got a lot better over the years. This is because they collect and use your data. For an assistant to work better, it needs as much data as possible to understand you better. However, this goes against Apple’s privacy laws, so they haven’t improved Siri much since its launch. However, many solutions exist, like on-device encryption and offline processing of sensitive data. Apple will probably use these solutions in the future.
In addition, Gurman said Apple is still deciding whether to do the AI processing on-device or the cloud or take the hybrid approach route. It’s still uncertain whether all devices eligible for the iOS 18 update will get the AI features.
Nevertheless, another leaker, @tech_reve, said that Apple will bring the LLM model to millions of iOS 18 eligible devices using cloud-based AI. However, the new AI features will possibly stay exclusive to the iPhone 16 series.
According to Gurman, Apple might not do everything on-device. They could also use cloud services or a hybrid approach. This will perform some tasks on your device and some via the cloud. Using the cloud would require encryption. Some AI features need specific hardware, so Apple mostly won’t bring them to older iPhones.
We’ll get many improvements in daily use tasks. Better interactions between Siri and the Messages app will mean that users can find answers to more complex questions, and Siri can autocomplete sentences, too. Automatic playlists will improve Apple Music and the recommendation algorithm, which is worse than the competition. We’ll also get new features with first-party apps like Keynote, Pages, and Numbers.
We’ll also get a new 3nm (TSMC N3E) chip from Apple, likely the A18 Pro. It might have a lot of AI benefits. According to leaks, all iPhone 16 models will ship with an extra button, which leakers assume is a Photo Capture Button or a Shutter Button. Apple might even use it for their AI tasks as a Siri Button. It’s apparently a capacitive haptic-based button. Apple is spending nearly a Billion dollars a year on AI research. The company’s senior VP of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, oversees the research too.