Rise of the Apple AI
All the signs so far point towards Apple putting AI – specifically generative AI – front and center at WWDC 2024. Its developer-centric conference will surely highlight the potential of AI in and across its myriad of products and platforms. And highlight how developers use and could use AI-based APIs to integrate an extra layer of smarts into their apps and services.
And so that leads me to ponder what could the Worldwide Developers Conference, set for June 10, actually tell us about Apple’s future hardware, given no new devices are tipped to be revealed at the keynote.
First, let’s look at what we can expect from Apple over the rest of the year and heading into 2025.New iPhones and Apple Watches for 2024
As night follows day, we’ll undoubtedly get the iPhone 16 around September time, likely joined by a new Apple Watch – specifically the Apple Watch 10 – and maybe the rumored AirPods Pro 3 and AirPods Max 2; though we’re not so convinced by the latter.
Given the iPad Air and iPad Pro range just got a rework, we don’t expect any new iPads any time soon. And as we got new MacBook Pro M3 and MacBook Air M3 models this year, we won’t expect to see M4 variants until 2025. There’s even a chance that the Macs could skip the M4 chip as it’s similar to the M3 only with efficiency and AI workloads in mind. The same could be true of the iMac 24-inch M3.
Personally, I’d love to see the 27-inch iMac make a comeback, but I suspect that desktop might have gone the way of the dodo, potentially joined by the iPad mini.
So that’s a good stab at the state of play for Apple’s hardware over the next 12 months or so. And with that in mind, what could we posit that WWDC will tell us what we can expect from said hardware… AI integrated at Apple’s core
My prediction – and I stress to add this is speculation based on my experience covering Apple – is that the overall design and hardware capabilities of Cupertino’s products won’t change a great deal. Apple has arguably nailed the tablet formula with the iPads, and its MacBooks are all rather slick; though I’m sure some would argue for a few more ports.
There’s scope for the iPhone and Apple Watch designs to have some tweaks. But I think Apple will continue to iterate on these by trimming display bezels and reducing the thickness of watch cases, rather than go down the road of drastic redesigns.
But AI tools and capabilities will surely be integrated across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS, to bring in things like generative AI-powered editing, smarter searching in Safari, the ability to quickly summarize web pages, documents, and meetings, or simply ask a smarter Siri to pull together an agenda for your week based on access to Maps, your email and calendar – plus third-party tools like air travel apps.
