Apple Intelligence - page 2

At the WWDC26 keynote, Apple announced the next versions of all its operating systems with a swath of AI features. There are tweaks to the Liquid Glass design, a wide array of tiny quality-of-life and performance improvements, draconian parental controls and limits, and AI in every corner of the operating system.

It was an unusual WWDC keynote that disposed of the typical platform-by-platform format, and a relatively brisk runtime. But if you don’t have 76 minutes to spare, you can get the gist in just 90 seconds.

watchOS 27 will bring the new Siri AI, a smarter Workout Buddy and other useful new features to Apple Watch. While the wearable didn’t receive much attention during the WWDC26 keynote on Monday, Apple said watchOS will get AI-powered upgrades like the rest of its platforms.

“You can start chatting with Siri on your iPhone, pick up where you left off on your iPad, and wrap up on your Mac,” said Mike Rockwell, Apple’s VP of Siri engineering, during the keynote. “We’re also tailoring Siri AI for watchOS. So you can ask questions and take action right on your wrist. And you can also tap into the Siri app using the new app grid on Apple Watch.”

At the Platforms State of the Union, Apple covered the nitty gritty on the new Siri AI and Apple Intelligence features, improved Liquid Glass design, Device Hub and more tools announced today.

Much nerdier than the morning keynote, this event covers the technical details of how developers are supposed to use and adopt the new features inside their apps with the latest developer tools.

You can watch the Platforms State of the Union on YouTube, in the Apple Developer app or on the web. Read on to see our live coverage of the event.

The headlining new feature of iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 — new Siri AI — will not come to the EU.

“We’re deeply disappointed that our EU users won’t have Siri AI on iPhone or iPad when we share our new software releases later this year,” said Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi.

While Siri got a complete redesign to include a dedicated chatbot app, on-screen awareness and deeper integration with third-party tools, that’s not the only AI upgrade cited by Apple in Monday’s WWDC26 keynote. A bunch of new Apple Intelligence features are set to upgrade your life, too.

“Truly helpful AI must be centered on our users’ needs, deeply integrated into the products they rely on every day, grounded in personal context, and built with privacy at every step. That is our vision for Apple Intelligence,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering.

“With useful features for browsing the web, expressing creativity, editing photos and so much more, today marks a big step forward on our journey to integrate powerful AI into the core of our platforms and make our products even more personal and useful,” he added.

The new features will become available with the release of iOS 27 and other OS updates coming in September 2026.

Apple took the wraps off macOS 27 Golden Gate, the next major release of its Mac operating system, during the opening keynote of WWDC26 on Monday.

It brings Liquid Glass refinements and performance improvements along with an enhanced Siri and deeper Apple Intelligence integration.

Everybody expects Apple’s Siri voice assistant to get a big AI-powered makeover Monday at WWDC26. But there’s more to the picture, in that Apple Intelligence and Visual Intelligence will see a bunch of separate new features, too, according to rumors rounded up in a new report Friday.

Apple will reportedly play up the on-device AI prowess of its devices next month during its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote. The company will supposedly highlight how its A-series and M-series chips allow AI models to run locally for better efficiency and privacy.

With Apple’s competitors aggressively pushing cloud-based AI features, the company will likely position on-device AI as a key advantage of its ecosystem throughout WWDC26.

As Apple prepares what could be its most consequential software release in years with iOS 27 at WWDC26, we get our first real glimpse at what an overhauled Siri and other Apple Intelligence features may look like, courtesy of Bloomberg. It mocked up a bunch of illustrations in a new report Thursday.

As it struggles to catch up on AI, Apple almost undoubtedly plans to focus on Apple Intelligence in iOS 27. But the company will also reportedly focus on refining the iPhone experience and tidying up existing features.

Thanks to leaks, we already have an early look at some of iOS 27’s biggest new features. While Apple certainly has some surprises planned, these are the leaked iOS 27 features I’m most excited to try.

Apple previewed a sweeping set of accessibility upgrades Tuesday that weave Apple Intelligence into some of its most relied-upon features — VoiceOver, Magnifier, Voice Control and Accessibility Reader. We can expect to see all changes arrive later this year.

The company also announced auto-generated subtitles for uncaptioned video, a new eye-tracking wheelchair control feature for Vision Pro and the launch of an adaptive MagSafe accessory called Hikawa Grip & Stand for iPhone.

“Apple’s approach to accessibility is unlike any other,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook. “Now, with Apple Intelligence, we are bringing powerful new capabilities into our accessibility features while maintaining our foundational commitment to privacy by design.”

Apple might be planning to make Genmoji much more useful in iOS 27. The feature, which currently lets users create custom emoji, could soon suggest AI-generated emoji based on your personal photo library and the phrases you type most often.

That would solve one of the biggest problems with Genmoji: Most iPhone users forget it exists. Despite being genuinely fun and useful, Genmoji remains one of the most overlooked Apple Intelligence features.

But Apple might change that with iOS 27.

iOS 27 will offer additional AI-powered grammar assistance, according to an unconfirmed report Monday. This will go beyond the writing tools already available through Apple Intelligence and will work in macOS and iPadOS, too.

In addition, Apple will also use AI to generate wallpapers for their devices and also make shortcuts easier to create in the Shortcuts app.

AI is changing the kind of apps you can run on a Mac. From voice-first writing tools to meeting assistants and smarter file management, these new AI apps can save hours every week.

After months of testing, these are the AI apps that earned a permanent spot in my workflow.

Safari in iOS 27 and macOS 27 will reportedly copy a handy Google Chrome feature to better manage your open tabs. It will build on the Tab Groups feature to organize similar open tabs into groups automatically.

Apple will apparently also provide a manual way to open tabs into groups.

This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: We’ve been complaining about just how stupid Siri can be for years, but Apple’s failure to deliver a promised AI upgrade just cost the company a cool $250 million.

We discuss how you can get your sliver of that payout, whether a stupid Siri is a deal-breaker (obviously not, since we all swear by our iPhones), and how Apple can really make things right.

Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:

• The MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple totally missed the boat on its projections. Now the company is making an unusual move — and it might mean the budget laptop goes up in price.
• If you’ve been waiting for the perfect time to buy a Mac, it’s here.
• After getting banged up for its lack of savvy when it comes to artificial intelligence, Apple looks ready to win the AI wars, thanks to its brilliant strategy.
• And finally, Griffin goes over the pros and cons of an affordable home rowing machine. Come for the review, stay for the extremely weird Ohio hallway.

Listen to this week’s episode of the Cult of Mac podcast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video version, embedded below.

Apple’s next-gen AirPods are reportedly in “late stages of development,” with the addition of cameras being a standout feature of the earbuds. The goal of adding cameras is apparently to make the earbuds, potentially called “AirPods Ultra,” into AI-friendly devices that are aware of the user’s surroundings.

They could become the first of a new class of wearables from Apple designed for the AI era.

Apple agreed to pay $250 million to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing it of false advertising and unfair competition, after the personalized Siri features it promoted when launching iPhone 16 saw significant delays. Now, many iPhone users can lay claim to payouts. 

Apple will let iPhone and Mac users choose between multiple AI models for different tasks, according to a report published Tuesday. The strategy would allow users to select whichever third-party AI system they prefer to generate and edit text and images for them.

It’s a brilliant solution to the ongoing battle between companies to develop the best AI models. It won’t matter whether OpenAI, Google, Perplexity, etc., wins that fight — because Apple also wins.

Apple is reportedly prepping a significant upgrade to the photo-editing capabilities of the iPhone, iPad and Mac. The company will turn to artificial intelligence to let users enhance their images, including using generative AI to extend images beyond their current borders, according to information leaking out of Cupertino on Tuesday.

The news should raise the excitement level for iOS 27, macOS 27 and iPadOS 27, which should arrive this fall.

You can easily remove any object from a photo using Apple Intelligence’s free Clean Up tool on your iPhone, Mac or iPad. It works fairly well — but it’s good to know its limitations.

As the only graphic designer among my friends, I’ve frequently been asked over the years to Photoshop unwanted elements out of pictures. Take, for example, a romantic shot of a couple in a gazebo, with a phone sitting on the handrail in an obvious spot. The image might look a lot better if you delete that stray device.

Or imagine a group photo from a fun night out, with someone’s dumpy tote bag sitting by their feet, or a picture from a big conference that shows an ugly lanyard around someone’s neck. With Apple Intelligence’s free Clean Up feature, anyone can make the tote bag and the lanyard disappear, right from their iPhone.

Now, you have the power to clean up your own photos — a chance to make your almost-perfect shots perfect in an instant. 

You can record a phone call on your iPhone for future reference using a built-in tool. This feature is a great way to refer back to a previous conversation. Who said what? What date did they say? What exactly did you agree to?

If your device supports Apple Intelligence, you’ll get transcriptions of the phone calls, too. They’ll go in a Call Recordings folder in the Notes app.

If you used a shady call recording app before, you can bid it adieu. There’s a convenient button built right into the Phone app. Here’s how it all works.

Making a playlist in Apple Music is a great way to set the mood for a party, road trip or your own private time. You can create playlists for working, working out, studying, driving, doing dishes, etc. Your friends can contribute to your playlist, too. And you can share your masterpiece on your Apple Music profile.

In iOS 26.4, Apple added Playlist Playground, a new feature that lets you quickly create custom playlists via Apple Intelligence. On supported devices, you can type in any odd request — and your iPhone will do the rest. The results aren’t quite DJ quality, but they’re a good starting point if you want something specific or unique. 

Here’s how to make a playlist by hand — and how to use the new Playlist Playground feature. 

Apple CEO Tim Cook has a well-established habit of dropping subtle hints about where the company is headed. This time, the dropped breadcrumbs all point toward Visual Intelligence. And the impression they leave is of a company preparing to reshape how humans interact with the world around them.

Amid reports that Apple might further delay the release of its AI-powered Siri, the company says it remains on track to launch the smarter voice assistant this year. That’s the same stance Apple maintained previously.

Multiple rumors suggested Apple would debut the smarter Siri with iOS 26.4 this spring. But a recent report suggests that won’t happen.