Apple just unveiled Apple Intelligence – “the personal intelligence system for iPhone, iPad, and Mac that combines the power of generative models with personal context” – and its share price dropped 2%.
You know why? Just check out the key features of Apple Intelligence:
- ChatGPT Integration: Integrated into system-wide Writing Tools and Siri, aiding in content creation and image generation.
- Rewrite, proofread, and summarise text across various apps like Mail, Notes, and Pages.
- Summaries for long email threads and stacked notifications.
- Record, transcribe, and summarise audio in Notes and Phone apps.
- Image Playground for creating animations and illustrations.
- Create custom emojis (Genmoji) from descriptions or photos.
- Enhanced search and editing tools in Photos, like Clean Up and Memories.
- Siri Enhancements: More natural and contextually relevant, with a new design.
My take: It’s no big deal. There’s nothing you can’t already do with free apps like ChatGPT (language tasks), Whisper AI (transcribing) or image generators. It’s just more convenient for Apple users as the features are baked into the devices.
That said, Apple has built its success on selling convenience to the masses. Also, Apple managed to dampen the upcoming release of Microsoft’s Copilot+ laptops on 18 June.
Microsoft’s description of its new breed of PCs: “Copilot+ PCs will enable you to do things you can’t on any other PC. Easily find and remember what you have seen in your PC with Recall, generate and refine AI images in near real-time directly on the device using Cocreator, and bridge language barriers with Live Captions, translating audio from 40+ languages into English.”
Sound similar?
Microsoft is promising amazing performance with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X chips, but I’ll wait for actual reviews.
Copilot+ PCs also had a big differentiator with the Recall function that takes constant screenshots of your screen so you can search your own PC usage. The privacy backlash came so fast that Microsoft has backpedaled and made it an opt-in feature.
The Microsoft and Apple rivalry continues but the biggest winner is OpenAI. In less than two years since ChatGPT 3.5 launched, OpenAI has made itself integral to the two biggest computing platforms on earth.
That was the real news today.