Apple has significantly ramped up its spending on artificial intelligence, according to a new report from The Information that highlights Apple's AI and machine learning research.
Though Apple's AI chief John Giannandrea is said to be skeptical of AI chatbots, he established a team that is working on conversational AI four years ago. We have heard prior rumors about "Apple GPT" from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman in July said that Apple was experimenting with large language models, and some Apple employees have access to an "Ajax" internal chatbot.
With the 2022 debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT, chatbots suddenly became the must-have feature. Microsoft and Google have both launched chatbots, but there are so far no signs that Apple has a consumer-oriented product launching in the near future.
Apple's "Foundational Models" team that works on conversational AI includes just 16 people, but Apple is spending millions of dollars per day training its language models. Training large language models requires a lot of hardware, and as an example, OpenAI Sam Altman said the company spent more than $100 million for GPT-4.
According to The Information, Apple has other AI goals. The company is aiming to develop a feature that would allow a voice assistant like Siri to automate multi-step tasks. That functionality is available on the iPhone today, but workflows must be manually set up using the Shortcuts app.
The Siri team could have multi-step voice-controlled automation ready for use in iOS 18.
Apple also appears to have AI teams that are working on software to generate videos and images and multimodal AI that works with images, video, and text. The aforementioned Ajax chatbot that Apple is working with is supposedly more capable than the original ChatGPT 3.5 and has been trained on 200 billion parameters, but OpenAI's newer models are more powerful.
Wednesday February 19, 2025 8:02 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple today introduced the iPhone 16e, its newest entry-level smartphone. The device succeeds the third-generation iPhone SE, which has now been discontinued.
The iPhone 16e features a larger 6.1-inch OLED display, up from a 4.7-inch LCD on the iPhone SE. The display has a notch for Face ID, and this means that Apple no longer sells any iPhones with a Touch ID fingerprint button, marking the ...
Tuesday February 18, 2025 12:02 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Over the years, Apple has switched from an aluminum frame to a stainless steel frame to a titanium frame for its highest-end iPhones. And now, it has been rumored that Apple will go back to using aluminum for three out of four iPhone 17 models.
In an investor note with research firm GF Securities, obtained by MacRumors this week, Apple supply chain analyst Jeff Pu said the iPhone 17, iPhone...
Thursday February 20, 2025 5:06 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Now that Apple has announced its new more affordable iPhone 16e, our thoughts turn to what else we are expecting from the company this spring.
There are three product categories that we are definitely expecting to get upgraded before spring has ended. Keep reading to learn what they are. If we're lucky, Apple might make a surprise announcement about a completely new product category.
M4...
Apple is set to "significantly change" the iPhone's design language later this year, according to a Weibo leaker.
In a new post, the user known "Digital Chat Station" said that the iPhone's design is "starting to change significantly" this year. The "iPhone 17 Air" reportedly features a "horizontal, bar-shaped" design on the rear, likely referring to an elongated camera bump. On the other...
Wednesday February 19, 2025 11:38 am PST by Juli Clover
Following the launch of the iPhone 16e, Apple updated its iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia pages to give a narrower timeline on when the next updates are set to launch.
All three pages now state that new Apple Intelligence features and languages will launch in early April, an update from the more broader April timeframe that Apple provided before. The next major point updates will be iOS ...
Thursday February 13, 2025 8:07 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In a social media post today, Apple CEO Tim Cook teased an upcoming "launch" of some kind scheduled for Wednesday, February 19.
"Get ready to meet the newest member of the family," he said, with an #AppleLaunch hashtag.
The post includes a short video with an animated Apple logo inside a circle.
Cook did not provide an exact time for the launch, or share any other specific details, so...
Friday February 14, 2025 6:18 am PST by Joe Rossignol
The first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner, and the update is expected to include many new features and changes.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman expects the iOS 18.4 beta to be released by next week.
Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far.
Apple Intelligence for Siri
Siri is expected to get several enhancements powered by Apple Intelligence on iOS...
Friday February 14, 2025 6:03 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple released the HomePod mini in November 2020, followed by the AirTag in May 2021, and both still remain first-generation products.
Fortunately, rumors suggest that both the HomePod mini and the AirTag will finally be updated at some point this year.
Below, we recap rumors about the HomePod mini 2 and AirTag 2.
HomePod mini 2
In January 2025, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple is ...
Considering how Google and Amazon are decreasing work on their voice assistants due to them not making enough money, I think Apple actually has a shot at taking the first place trophy next year for voice assistant for the first time since they were the only option… That would be a wild shake up in the state of affairs.
