During “Let Loose” keynote where Apple took the wraps off new iPads alongside Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil Pro, one thing that came as a surprise—or no surprise—was a hint that Apple is getting very serious about AI and its applications.
As I often say, Apple may have been late to the AI party but sometimes coming late has its own perks. The perks are that it knows what to do, and what not to do. How to rightfully train its AI dataset, and keep an eye out for shortcomings.
During the approximately 38-minute-long “Let Loose” keynote, Apple mentioned the term “AI” like eight times in several contexts. And it’s not just talk, but rather a part of Apple’s plans to surround its ecosystem utilizing AI features. Melody Kuna, iPad Product Design Director, drops the first mention when she says, “With M2, the new [iPad] Air is also an incredibly powerful device for AI.” Shortly after, she adds, “…or for the ML Enhance tool in Photomator which uses AI models trained on over 20 million pro images.”
The Mention of AI Isn’t Just Talk, Instead a Reflection of Apple’s Plans Ahead
There are six more instances where Apple used the term, AI to showcase how it’s upping the game. However, among many of the mentions, what raised our eyebrows was when Tim Millet joined the conversation, shortly after Apple confirmed M4 chip is coming to the 2024 iPad Pro (and what a pleasant surprise!). He says, “The Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI.” Further adding, “With this level of performance, the Neural Engine in M4 is more powerful than any Neural Processing Unit (NPU) in any AI PC today! So that’s M4.”
Once again, Apple is leveraging AI to boast how “outrageously powerful” its M4 chip is. On the same note, Apple has also confirmed that it’s working on an M4-powered MacBook, set to debut later on.
As expected, Apple didn’t reveal much about the generative AI features set to debut during WWDC. However, Apple spoke of some consumer-centric features and how it uses AI to address some of the common issues like scanning a document in poor lighting conditions. It mentions how iPad Pro seems to be solving this issue with the help of AI “to detect documents like forms and receipts automatically.”
The bottom line is that Apple is inching closer to making AI a part of its ecosystem. This aligns with recent reports of Apple utilizing the M2 Ultra chip for building AI servers and plans to use the M4 chip later on. In addition, iOS 18 is said to be the biggest software update in Apple’s history and you’d know already that AI plays a crucial role here. That said, we await WWDC where we will see Apple reveal the most widely-anticipated features on its devices.