We're baaaaack. Apple returns for another Worldwide Developers Conference and for this session, the company doubles down on Apple Intelligence, new iOS 27 and macOS 27, and... an upgraded Siri?
Now with "AI" tagged to the name,Our digital Girl Friday is now powered by Google Gemini (Google's suite of multimodal AI models and AI assistant). With a third party involvement, what does this mean, in terms of privacy? Apple still prioritises "privacy-first" so any AI computations will solely be processed on-device. For more complicated tasks, it falls on Private Cloud Compute, which verifies requests without storing personal data.
Built from the ground-up, Siri AI will now be aware of what's on your display. So, if your friend sends over their address, Siri AI can add said address to their contact card. In the Camera app, Siri AI can scan objects, or take a pic of the bill so you can split it with your non-mooching friends. You can use Siri AI to save and synch your chat history across your devices via iCloud.
Thanks to Google Gemini, Apple Intelligence gets a leg up. It has improved reasoning and image understanding. Privacy is still paramount with all data processed locally. Apple Intelligence will be integrated across apps like Safari, Messages, Calendar, Mail, and Phone. You can also find Apple Intelligence in your Home and Shortcuts apps, where it will deliver enabling AI-generated summaries of lengthy content, like, having your notifications be turned into easy-to-scan, key details on your lock screen.
Your photo editing tools get the AI treatment. Cleanup gets an upgrade, Extend tool expands image boundaries, and Spatial Reframing lets you to a photo's composition after it has been taken... as to how much your can alter, remains to be seen.
Given Meta's failure in protecting the young'uns' from predators on their platforms, Apple stepped up with automatic safeguards that put restrictions on adult websites, age-appropriate media and App Store content. There's an improved Communication Safety feature that blur images and videos containing gore or violent content. But parents gotta parent, so they can add limits to app access, and manage screen-time allowances. If a child were to come across website that Apple think might have questionable content, there's a "Ask to Browse" feature, where children need to ask for parental approval before visiting the site in question.
There were also announcements of iOS 27 and macOS 27 Golden Gate (so long natural landscapes, hello man-made structures!), as well as, a customisable EQ feature for the AirPods, letting users to further personalise how their AirPods will sound. There's an upgrade to Liquid Glass (which we didn't use because it was a little janky on our phone). The aesthetic allows for more legibility and customisation, like a transparency slider in Settings that tweaks the effect to your liking.
For more WWDC announcements, check out the entirety of the keynote address here:
