Apple Intelligence has faced some challenges lately, particularly with Siri. There’s definitely room for improvement, and enhancing this should be a top priority for Apple.
Nonetheless, Mark Gurman from Bloomberg reports that Apple is looking to enhance its current Apple Intelligence functionalities by extending them to more applications in iOS 19, and I have some ideas I’d love to share.
Summaries in Additional Areas
Providing summaries might be one of the best applications of on-device large language models. Apple rolled out notification summaries in iOS 18, and while there were some notable inaccuracies in the beginning, they seem to have improved significantly. Recently, Apple has enabled Apple Intelligence by default on devices that support it instead of requiring users to opt-in.
For starters, having an API for developers to implement summarization models in their apps would be fantastic. While I’m sure Apple would enforce strict guidelines for this, allowing third-party developers to leverage Apple’s summarization models could be a significant advantage, enabling indie creators to build AI functionalities without the burden of an OpenAI usage fee.
Moreover, I’d really appreciate enhancements in the Messages app’s summarization, especially for group chats. If you miss out on a bustling conversation with a hundred messages, Apple should offer a thorough summary rather than one that can be contained in a couple of lines.
Or consider a student: how useful would it be to summarize the notes taken during a class afterward? While reviewing the notes is still essential for a complete understanding, a note summary could serve as an excellent memory jogger when needing a quick recall.
Genmoji for All
Genmoji is among the standout features of Apple Intelligence revealed at WWDC24. Unfortunately, it is currently limited to the latest iPhone models – specifically, the iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max, iPhone 16e, iPhone 16/16 Plus, and iPhone 16 Pro/Pro Max.
If you own an older model, like the one-year-old iPhone 15, you won’t have access to Genmoji.
While I don’t anticipate Apple will enable these features to run locally on less powerful hardware, as appealing as that would be, they have introduced Private Cloud Compute – a dedicated server for managing Apple Intelligence requests in the cloud.
Since these servers were likely limited in capacity when initially deployed, by the time iOS 19 launches, it will have been over a year since they began the rollout.
While I doubt Apple would offer Private Cloud Compute services at no cost, it would be exciting if they included Genmoji in iCloud+ subscriptions for users with older devices, giving them a taste of what Apple Intelligence can deliver.
Enhanced Customizable Focus Modes
One of my favorite features introduced in iOS 18 is the new Reduce Interruptions focus mode. In essence, it examines every notification and only presents those deemed important, allowing the rest to remain in the notification center.
I’d like to see Apple provide more detailed options here. For instance, users should be able to set up a focus mode that activates based on specific keywords they define. Conversely, it might be beneficial to silence notifications for particular keywords from apps that usually are allowed to notify you.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, but I genuinely believe there’s immense potential for AI to facilitate more nuanced notification management. The newly introduced “Reduce Interruptions” focus mode is merely the beginning.
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