It’s no secret that Apple will be ramping up its AI efforts with its operating system updates this year, and we’ll learn all about iOS 18 and macOS 15 at WWDC in less than three weeks.
Details were leaked in the weeks leading up to the event, and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has some news we haven’t heard about yet. Siri, he claims, will be able to perform almost all app functions. The feature is expected to arrive in an iOS 18 update in early 2025.
Currently, Apple offers a limited number of “app intents” that developers can connect to and which allow Siri to perform limited actions within those apps. For example, start playing audio or sending messages.
Under the new system, Apple will use AI to analyze what people do on their devices, as well as read screen content (like button labels), to run a much wider range of functions. The system is expected to handle hundreds of different commands and likely won’t require developers to build their apps in a specific way to enable them all.
Initially, the system should handle one command at a time and only within Apple’s own apps. Over time, Apple hopes to expand this to work in almost any app and support multiple commands at once. Examples given would be creating a text summary of a recorded meeting then texting it to a colleague, or cropping an image then emailing it to a friend.
This feature feels like a nail in the coffin for devices like the Rabbit R1 or the Humane AI Pin, which aim to do similar things with apps and services on a much smaller scale and in a more limited way.
The feature is not expected to be available when iOS 18 launches in September, but rather in an update in early 2025. We’ll learn a lot more about Apple’s AI ambitions at WWDC on June 10.
