Although Get a Mac ads While the video games of the mid- to late-2000s are probably just a memory for most of us, Apple, with its latest introduction, has further impressed us business people with the idea that anything a PC can do, a Mac can do better, and actually make that thing fun and worthwhile.
Enter Apple Intelligence, a content-aware and context-aware AI tool built into iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia, scheduled to launch in October 2024 with support for US English and other languages to follow shortly thereafter.
It's a lot like Microsoft 365 Copilot, the company's AI platform that we've been conditioned to want to use at work, but geared toward consumers.
Generative AI, still the buzzword in the tech world, is coming to Apple users in the form of “writing tools,” and the company is showing off a demo of how to write emails. The (slightly tenuous) B2B link we’re looking for here is that Apple showed a recent graduate using it to send an email to a recruiter. The email is just four sentences long, which makes the whole thing a little grim, but yes, it’s something you can do now.
It’s not a new concept — allowing AI to replace the expression of any identity — but consider what makes Apple Intelligence different: that “many of the models that power Apple Intelligence run entirely on the device,” meaning your expensive design computer will now be bogged down by things that prevent it from actually getting down to the things we invented computers to help us do in the first place.
Apple's dedicated cloud computing for intelligence
There's also the fact that the company noted that its “Private Cloud Compute offers the ability to flex and scale compute capacity between on-device processing and larger server-based models running on dedicated Apple silicon servers,” which should mean this is a predominantly Apple operation, with no nVidia chips or servers involved.
This is actually commendable; by operating its own server infrastructure, Apple seems to be trying to achieve something, even if it's not necessarily an innovation. However, ChatGPT is integrated into the new Siri and those “writing tools,” so you can't have it all.
And yes, while we still mourn the loss of Windows Phone, iOS is also getting in on the fun. All that boring, dull boardroom business about recording and summarizing Microsoft Teams calls has now come to the consumer; this now works on phone calls, with participants being briefed during them. It's not known if this works across all platforms or just between iOS devices. Natural language prompts can now be used to create photo galleries from descriptions, while auto-cleanup features, well, exist.
AI belongs in the B2C space rather than B2B
For me, the role of AI has always been to replace tedium. B2B writers and readers find it easy to apply this to the world of work, as computers have, ironically, complicated our working lives far more than they have simplified them.
However, it still makes sense to pass AI on to those who have access to the technology but are often too overwhelmed to be able to use it well. They are bombarded with information as notifications, they are not good at organizing photos and documents, and they are not good at making home movies and photo albums. As arguably the most well-known brand on the planet, Apple is probably on the cusp of truly sending AI into the stratosphere. In isolation, this is a good thing. TechRadar Pro He's upset because we shouldn't In fact I'm writing about what Apple has planned, but it could make people more tech-savvy, which will help them get jobs in a firmly digital world, which is a B2B concern.
It doesn't necessarily make people more technological.literatewhich is a huge concern for the sustainability of AI technology and infrastructure going forward, though I really don’t know how you can get people to understand that Siri isn’t a breathing superior being, how devastating AI is to the environment, or that the lack of respect for copyright on training dataset material is a living nightmare for anyone trying to make money off their work. It’s bad™ that there’s ignorance around these things, and Apple bringing AI to many more billions of people can only perpetuate this.
But, if AI is going to exist, then I would rather consumers have it first. The human element in all the work that makes the work work can be invaluable; the idea that AI can actually take over written expression with a purpose seems ridiculous, and the idea that it can replace infrastructure where some element of human compassion and analysis is actually beneficial seems positively terrifying, and more so. But what if you want to find all of your cat's photos and throw them into a slideshow with just one sentence? Yeah, why not?
