Apple Intelligence rolls out to iPhones, iPads and Macs

First set of Apple AI tools rolls out this week offering writing tools, improvements to Siri, and object removal from pictures

Apple has finally started rolling out Apple Intelligence, its suite of AI tools offering users the ability to rewrite their own work in a range of tones, a more conversational Siri, and a Photos app with intelligence search capabilities in which users can more easily remove elements they don’t like.

However, users in the European Union will have to wait until April 2025 before the full range of features are made available to them, while Apple works through the regulatory implications of the EU’s Digital Markets Act on its AI tools – unless, for some reason, they’re running macOS Sequoia 15.1 on a Mac, and have their languages settings on US English; or, iPhone and iPad users with a US App Store ID, also with localised settings set on US English.

The announcement this week follows on from a reveal in June 2024 where Apple sought to roadmap how it planned to catch-up with rivals, such as Samsung. Apple claims that its implementation of AI on its smartphones and computer hardware will fully respect users’ privacy, with processing typically performed on-device rather than in the cloud.

In a bid to catch-up, Apple cut a deal with OpenAI to redirect requests that either can’t be performed locally or which provide unsatisfactory responses, to ChatGPT – with the permission of the user.

“Apple Intelligence unlocks exciting new capabilities that make your iPhone, iPad, and Mac even more helpful and useful, from writing tools to help refine your writing, to summarised notifications that surface what’s most important, to the ability to search for almost anything in your photos and videos by simply describing it,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering.

At the same event that Apple finally released its AI tools, the company also unveiled a new iMac with the in-house developed ARM-based M4 chip, a Mac Mini and a MacBook Pro.

Apple claims that the new M4 processor is 1.7 times faster for daily productivity, such as spreadsheets, and more than twice as fast for more demanding applications, such as photo editing and gaming – compared to an iMac running the M1 chip. The new iMac will offer either an eight-core or a 10-core CPU, coupled with either an eight-core or 10-Core GPU.

The new iMacs will also come with 12MP camera built-in to the monitor and Thunderbolt 4 support. The monitor will have an option for nano-texture glass display, which is intended to reduce glare, greatly reducing reflections from lamps and other objects in the room that the device is being used.

The company has finally come to the realisation that 8GB simply isn’t enough memory these days, and upped the minimum spec on all the devices to 16GB. However, the base level iMacs still only offer a paltry 256GB or SSD storage, while even the top-of-the-range options only offer 512GB. They all, however, come in a nice range of pastel colours.