At the keynote for today’s WWDC24 launch, Apple revealed its version of LLM/machine language/AI stuff and is calling it Apple Intelligence, which will just confuse people, and when it doesn’t confuse people and goes sideways, Apple’s got its name stuck right there at the beginning to remind you who is behind the thing that isn’t working for you. It’s very Apple.
The keynote was pretty dull. Apple hits the same notes every time they do these and is leaning so hard into the Xtreme Craig Federighi stuff that it has gone from parody to self-parody to whatever it is now. After the prerecorded segment in which a bunch of people skydive into Apple Park, the camera drone zooms into Tim Cook on the roof of the building and saying, “Wow, that was so cool” with all the excitement of someone reading names from a telephone book (kids, ask your parents what a telephone book is).
There were a few things I liked:
- Customizing icon arrangement on iPhone/iPad (and not forcing iPad owners to wait a year to get the feature), though it remains to be seen how much you can really customize it. Probably not as much as people will want.
- The workout app on the Apple Watch finally acknowledges that there are days you might not complete your rings because you’re sick/hurt/on vacation.
- Uh, I’m sure there was something else.
What I found most interesting is the limited pool of hardware that can take advantage of AI™. It will only work with an M1 or better SoC and last year’s iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max models. I mean, I doubt I’d use it much, anyway. My phone is basically a camera and text messenger device.
Overall, some nice new things, unless you’re an iPad owner hoping for a dramatically overhauled and improved UI, in which case you are probably quietly sobbing right now.
