Apple Intelligence isn’t here to mess around

APPLE

Apple Intelligence isn’t here to mess around

Apple’s just announced a major update to its AI system, Apple Intelligence, and it’s now built into iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and even Vision Pro.

While WWDC 2025 was quite light on AI, there were still some big upgrades.

The aim is to have smarter tools that help you get things done, stay creative, and communicate better, all while keeping your data private.

Live Translation is one of the standout features.

It lets you message, call, or FaceTime someone in another language and see instant translations, either as live captions or spoken back to you in real time.

And since it all runs on-device, the conversations stay private.

Creativity gets a boost with Genmoji and Image Playground.

I made this emoji myself, thanks

You can now combine emojis or describe what you want, and the system creates it, whether it’s a new character, a mood, or a scene.

ChatGPT is built into Image Playground too, so you can request styles like oil painting or vector art, nothing’s shared unless you give the go-ahead.

Visual Intelligence is now baked into your screen.

If you’re browsing a product, you can highlight it and search for similar items instantly across supported apps like Google or Etsy.

Apple Intelligence spots it and helps add it straight to your calendar with date and location details already filled in.

On the Apple Watch, Workout Buddy utilises your personal fitness data to provide real-time feedback during sessions.

It’s powered by a new generative voice model based on Fitness+ trainers, and it adapts to your performance, all processed privately on your device.

For app developers, Apple is opening up its on-device foundation model through a new framework.

With just a few lines of Swift code, developers can tap into Apple Intelligence and create new AI-powered experiences, like offline quizzes, smart searches, and custom content, without relying on cloud services.

Shortcuts is also getting a lift.

You can now build automations that directly tap into Apple Intelligence, whether it’s summarising notes or generating images.

If needed, ChatGPT can be included as part of the shortcut, but again, only with your permission.

A few extra updates worth noting:

• Mail threads can now be summarised in one tap.

• Apple Wallet pulls order tracking from your emails automatically.

• Messages can now suggest polls and let you create custom chat backgrounds with AI.

• Siri handles conversations more naturally and can follow along even if you switch mid-sentence.

• Photos search works with simple, human descriptions.

Apple Intelligence will support eight more languages by the end of the year, including Dutch, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

All of this is grounded in privacy. Most features run directly on your device.

And for anything that needs more power, Apple uses Private Cloud Compute, which doesn’t store your data or tie it back to you, plus the code powering it can be reviewed by independent security experts.

The idea is to make AI useful without compromising privacy.

Me using Genmoji to create an unhinged version of myself? Absolutely.