Apple WWDC 2024: Apple Intelligence, a Redesigned Siri and a Smarter Photos App

Apple held its Worldwide Developer Conference keynote today, and the headline story is AI, arriving across iPhone, iPad and Mac under a new banner: Apple Intelligence. Alongside it comes a redesigned Siri, a much smarter Photos app, and a long list of smaller but useful quality of life improvements.

Apple Intelligence

Think of Apple Intelligence as Apple’s own take on AI, woven directly into the system rather than bolted on as a separate app. It powers most of the new features below, including the redesigned Siri, AI-generated summaries, and the creative tools in Photos and Messages.

Siri gets a proper redesign

At WWDC 2024, Apple previewed a rebuilt Siri powered by Apple Intelligence, along with AI-generated summaries for Mail, notifications and other supported content. Apple said Apple Intelligence would begin rolling out later in the year.

Create your own emoji and images

Two new creative tools were previewed: a way to generate your own custom emoji, called Genmoji, and Image Playground, which lets you create AI-generated images directly on your device. Apple said these were coming later in the year.

A smarter Photos app

The Photos app has been redesigned, and now lets you search your photo or video library just by describing what you’re looking for in plain language, rather than relying on exact keywords. There’s also a new cleanup tool that uses AI to remove unwanted people or objects from a photo.

iPad gets a real calculator (finally)

iPad is getting its own dedicated Calculator app for the first time, including a scientific mode and Math Notes, a clever feature that lets you simply handwrite a maths problem with the Apple Pencil and have it solved for you. If your handwriting is anything like ours, there’s also an auto-cleanup feature that tidies up your actual handwriting on the page.

Messages, AirPods and small conveniences

Messages adds scheduled send, so you can write a message now and have it go out later, along with the ability to send messages via satellite when you’re out of normal signal range. If you’re wearing AirPods, you can now answer Siri with a simple nod or head shake, handy for anyone trying to take a call quietly in a crowded lift.

Elsewhere, you’ll be able to view and control your iPhone’s screen directly from your Mac over Wi-Fi, customise your iPhone and iPad home screens (including app icons and Lock Screen buttons), and hide or lock individual apps on iOS and iPadOS for extra privacy.

Apple Watch and Apple Vision Pro

Apple Watch gains a new training load metric, giving you a clearer measure of how hard you’re actually working during exercise. And Apple Vision Pro gets its own update too: a bigger virtual Mac display when you’re wearing the headset, and the ability to view your old photos in spatial format.

Apple Vision Pro is due to launch in Australia on 12 July 2024.

What’s next

The announced software features are expected to roll out through later 2024 releases. We’ll have more detail on the standout features, Apple Intelligence especially, once we’ve had a proper chance to use them ourselves.