Apple has announced the dates of the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC 2024) which will be held at Apple Park from 10 to 14 June and which will see, among the protagonists, iOS 18 and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The conference, which has a global scope, is organized primarily for developers and is the annual occasion during which the new operating systems of devices with Apple, including the long-awaited iOS 18 which has already been defined as the most important update in the history of iPhones.
Apple wanted to accompany the event with the sentence “Absolutely Incredible” (absolutely incredible), whose initials refer precisely to the acronym AI. The event can be followed in streaming starting from 6pm on June 10th also via Apple's YouTube channel.
What we know about iOS 18
It has been known for months now that Apple will introduce the RCS support (Rich Communication Services) which allows you to enrich the exchange of messages by including, in addition to text, also audio, images and videos, improving encryption to preserve privacy and data integrity.
Furthermore, the user interface will be made more customizable, thus satisfying a request that users of Apple operating systems have been making for years. The app icons on the Home screen they are subject to a system of invisible grids that “layout” them, creating a sort of pre-established order.
With iOS 18 users will have greater discretioncreating empty spaces or arranging the icons as you like.
Likewise, an improvement in photographic functions thanks to the contribution of AI is now certain. In this case, the MGIE technology (MLLM-Guided Image Editing) will allow both to satisfy user requests and to manipulate the pixels of the images taken.
What to expect from iOS 18
It is equally known that Apple will integrate AI into its iPhone operating systems. So does Siri, the voice assistant for Apple devices, will become more powerful, capable and useful. At the same time, historical apps such as Apple Musicthe Pages text editor, and the Keynote app for creating presentations.
However, in the field of AI we are moving on different terrain uncertain because, before the presentation during WWDC, Apple leaks a limited amount of information.
According to the little information released from the Cupertino headquarters, Siri could interact with the app Quick commandsthus carrying out complex tasks with little intervention from the user who, for example, can ask Siri to create a video by combining several photographs and send them to a specific contact.
There's no doubt that Apple is moving quickly to bridge the gap which divides it from the competition in the field of AI, as demonstrated by the agreements (still being defined) with Google Gemini in the West and with Baidu in China, to be able to exploit part of the potential of their artificial intelligence both in iOS 18 and in the next devices hardware (especially iPhone and iPad).
iOS 18 compatibility
The compatibility of iOS 18, in the absence of official confirmation from Apple, is mostly taken for granted with all smartphones up toiPhone 11 (which dates back to 2019). iPhones could also be included among the compatible devices – although the conditional is a must XS, XR and SE (second and third generation).
Among the new operating systems there is also anticipation for iPadOS whose backward compatibility should extend up to the iPad Pro from 2018 onwards and up to the iPadAir produced starting from 2019.