We spoke to Apple about its brand-new Apple Intelligence features
With its latest updates, Apple has just brought new Apple Intelligence features to its iPhones, iPads and Macs. And, for the first time since the launch of these capabilities, they’re now available in the UK.
These new features are designed to help you get more done, and they include powerful generative language and image features. But we know many of you may have some concerns and questions about the arrival of any artificial intelligence (AI) features you haven’t used before.
While they’re exciting, they’re also so new that there's a lot of confusion about how they work. Luckily, we got a chance to sit down with Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Greg “Joz” Joswiak, to talk all about the brand-new features for UK users, including what they’re useful for, how privacy is protected and how they’re accessible for those of us without much experience using AI tools.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
GH: How would you explain Apple Intelligence to those who have never used AI technologies before?
Greg Joswiak: We've been working on intelligence in our products for so many years that we were doing it before we even called it intelligence! Over time, we've continued to use intelligence and machine learning to aid hundreds of features, from crash detection to how your pencil works on an iPad. However, we now have a new breed of generative intelligence, which can both understand and generate content, language and images.
This enables incredible new features. You've seen it emerge in the last year or two, largely through chatbots. We wanted to approach this powerful capability in a different sort of way. Rather than creating another chatbot, we wanted to do what Apple always does with things that can be intimidating, hard and technical.
We wanted to humanise it, make it easy and fun to use every day. So that's what Apple Intelligence is. It takes this incredible new capability, and rather than making that a destination and putting it into an Apple Intelligence app, instead, we've integrated it into the features of the products you're already using.
GH: What are the specific problems and challenges you think Apple Intelligence will help people solve?
Greg Joswiak: We're going to meet you where you are. So, in our Photos app, we have the cleanup tool. When you have something in the background of an otherwise beautiful picture, you can now easily remove it.
We've done a number of things to make it easier to go back and look at your pictures. Sometimes, you just want to search for one particular photo. You see people going through their libraries, scanning hundreds, if not thousands, of thumbnails, looking for that one photo. Now, through Apple Intelligence, you can just find it by describing what it is. You can say, “Show me a picture of Katie wearing a yellow dress sitting on a horse”, and it's that simple; it will find the right picture.
We also have Writing Tools for Apple Intelligence. Whenever you're typing, Writing Tools emerge that allow you to proofread or rewrite something. You can make it more friendly, or more professional, and with our latest release, you can describe whatever you want it to do – even turning your writing into a poem.
We wanted more imaging capabilities. We know people love using emojis when they send messages to each other. We've got great emojis and great emoji artwork in our products, but people often ask us, “Why can't I have an emoji that does this, or that?”. [Now, with Genmoji, people can make] their own completely bespoke and unique emoji just by describing them.
GH: In building Apple Intelligence, how much do you consider what it's like for somebody with a lack of technical experience to use it for the first time?
Greg Joswiak: We've always had this belief in what we make that goes back to Steve (Jobs). Steve said one of the great things about Pixar movies is that kids can watch them and enjoy them, but so can the parents. It's really special when you can appeal to both audiences at once.
We like our products to be similar, to be very simple to use for somebody who's not an expert. They need to be intuitive, making it easy to get started. Yet at the same time, somebody who's gifted as a power user should also be able to get incredible usage out of it, too.
Apple Intelligence is an example of where we've just made it incredibly easy for people, and you don't have to learn new chatbot prompt protocols. Instead, we've just made these simple-to-use features in the products and apps you’re already using.
GH: How important is it that this is an “opt-in” experience? Is that a core feature of Apple Intelligence?
Greg Joswiak: ChatGPT is optional… Everything I've described to this point is all Apple-engineered. It's all Apple models that our engineers designed. It isn't using anybody else's technology.
However, there is this great world of knowledge and chatbots that we wanted to give our users seamless access to. So we went out and searched for what we thought was the best, and it was ChatGPT.
So, users can opt into that if they so choose, and can have seamless integration through different touchpoints, from Siri to composing within Writing Tools. They can do it without having to pay, without having to create an account, and with extended privacy protections as well.
In this way, we're really giving users the best of both worlds. We're giving them this incredible, intuitive, integrated experience around Apple Intelligence, and we’re also giving them seamless integration with this great world of knowledge and AI tools.
GH: Privacy is a big concern when it comes to artificial intelligence for many people. Can you tell us more about the specific ways that Apple is handling user data and keeping it private?
Greg Joswiak: Privacy is a fundamental human right. And we have been building it into our products for years and years, truly before most people cared, but for us, it was important.
And it's become increasingly important to people for good reason, because with a lot of companies, the product they sell is really data about you. It's to build a profile on you that can be sold between data brokers and can be targeted for advertising. That's not our business model. Ours is selling products like iPhones and iPads and Macs, and as a result we work very hard to protect your privacy.
First of all, most of the work that happens in Apple Intelligence happens on your device, and only on your device. But, in the times when it has to go up to the cloud because it needs a more sophisticated model, we've done things like minimise the amount of data that has to leave your device. We send it to the cloud and encrypt it. It's operated on in the cloud, on Apple-silicon-based servers. The idea here is that we extend the same privacy as you have on your device up into the cloud.
We operate on that data only as much as we need to, to satisfy what you need to get done and then we throw that data away. It was never associated with you. It was never stored. It wasn't used for our training. This whole thing is called Private Cloud Compute. And all of this can be validated by third-party researchers, because, of course, anybody could say “Trust us, our cloud is secure”. It's an incredible system. No one's done anything like it.
GH: Can users rely on Apple Intelligence when they’re offline, or is an internet connection always required?
Greg Joswiak: It depends on what they're doing. The lion’s share of stuff that happens in Apple Intelligence happens on your device. But, some things will go out to the cloud. What's nice is that you don't usually need to know that, right? It does what's appropriate at the moment when it needs to do it. Over time, those things will change. Obviously, we want to do even more on your device as the silicon becomes even more powerful. But, also over time, there will be more things we can do in the cloud as well.
GH: Apple Intelligence is free for users at launch – do you see a free tier as a key part of this offering that will be maintained?
Greg Joswiak: It is. One of the things we've said is that this isn't some app you're buying or subscribing to. This is us integrating these intelligence features into the apps that you use every day. So we certainly see that as part of the offering when you buy a phone, an iPad or a Mac. We're quite proud of that.
And, as I said, you've also got seamless integration to ChatGPT without having to pay for it. You can subscribe and take advantage of its higher-end features, but we've managed to make it so you don't even need to create an account to use ChatGPT.
GH: Which of the Apple Intelligence features have you personally found the most useful?
Greg Joswiak: I use all of the features, but words are a big part of my job. I write a lot, whether it's emails or press releases that we work on. And I find that sometimes my brain's working faster than my typing or my typing's working faster than my brain. I'm not sure which it is, but I’m prone to making typos that I only find after I've sent an email. Now, I pretty much proofread everything with Apple Intelligence. Or if I'm in a mood, I may rewrite it, maybe make it a little friendlier...
I use a lot of the Writing Tools but also Genmoji is a lot of fun too. A lot of the conversations with my college friends are over sports, so I have Genmojis that either have their faces as part of them, or are related to the sports we're texting about.
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