Apple previewed MacOS 15 Sequoia at WWDC this week, showing off an overhaul of the operating system for MacBooks and iMacs that centers on AI integration. This year’s WWDC was undoubtedly AI-themed. That’s not surprising, considering Apple took the time to discuss its plans for AI integration into its products. Now that it’s here, we have a better idea of the approach, and it’s looking good.
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New AI features are coming to Siri, Safari, and a new Continuity app that streamlines the use of your iPhone and Mac. But it’s not all AI. There are also quite a few quality of life design improvements and security updates launching with MacOS 15.
After this week’s preview, beta testing of MacOS 15 will begin immediately and will continue over the coming months, with a general public launch in Fall 2024. That’ll be here sooner than you think, so let’s take a look at the biggest features just announced.
1. Apple Intelligence
The past few months have been packed with high-profile announcements from OpenAI, Google and Microsoft, but Apple had the final say and reclaimed the acronym with the clever naming of its new Apple Intelligence. So what is it? It refers to the overarching AI ecosystem that will be present in MacOS 15, as well as the iPhone and iPad; the engine that powers all the new AI functionality in all its apps.
The Apple Intelligence ecosystem is fueled by a partnership with OpenAI, allowing Apple to leverage the vast LLM already cultivated through OpenAI’s massive success with ChatGPT, along with the company’s goals to take on Google by entering the search market.
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However, Apple’s approach to AI is clearly different from its competitors. Rather than positioning the new AI features as integral aspects of their products, Apple is offering users the opportunity to opt-in, making immediate adoption a choice. The AI features are also clearly defined as being in beta, underscoring their nature as work-in-progress.
This, to some extent, allows Apple to break away from the chaotic rat race and position itself as the cautious, more ethical actor when it comes to AI, especially in light of the recent debilitating security issues resulting from Microsoft’s Recall feature, which release of a large number of its new Copilot+ PCs.
2. Continuity
The new Continuity app links your Mac to your iPhone in a completely comprehensive way, essentially giving you remote access to your iPhone directly from your laptop. The demo at WWDC showed off iPhone mirroring to display the iPhone’s home screen, allowing interaction with multiple apps via the laptop’s trackpad and keyboard.
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The app also streamlines your devices by sending your iPhone’s notifications directly to the Mac so you can open the companion app on the laptop. If you are concerned about privacy while using your phone on your laptop, your phone’s screen will remain locked and turned off even if you use the phone remotely.
Alternatively, the new Standby mode on the iPhone displays a lot of data at a glance (but not interactively), such as a clock and a calendar, while you use the Continuity app on the Mac.
3. Siri 2.0
Apple has been playing the long game when it comes to its virtual assistant, Siri. One of the first to be adopted by the public, Siri has been around for a long time – since 2011 – although in recent years it has taken a back seat to flashy AI assistants. However, Apple’s technology in this area provides a strong foundation to expand on, and the new and improved Siri is packed with new AI features.
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During the WWDC keynote, Apple showed off Siri’s new look as an ever-present AI assistant integrated into every thread of the user interface, rather than a standalone app. Siri gains access to ChatGPT’s LLM, making the AI functionally ready to communicate in a more natural context, following up on previous conversations and messages rather than providing full context with each prompt.
The new Siri also comes with on-screen awareness, which allows the AI to respond to what you’re viewing on the screen without requiring the user to provide specific context with each prompt. This also allows Siri to perform in-app actions in a way that wasn’t possible before. In MacOS Sequoia, Siri’s integration with OpenAI’s LLM propels the virtual assistant into the top players in the field alongside ChatGPT-4o and Google’s Gemini.
4. AI-powered productivity apps
Apple Intelligence is integrated into all major productivity apps in MacOS 15. Here’s a look at some of the most notable features.
- Keynote, numbers and pages: Apple’s core suite of productivity apps features a host of AI-infused upgrades, both in terms of creativity and performance. Keynote will allow users to tap AI to automatically generate slides, and Pages will come with new text generation prompts powered by AI.
- Mail: Apple Intelligence will take a more active role in finding specific emails, responding, deleting, and organizing your inbox, from summarizing emails to suggesting replies and rewrites. One of the most useful features is the summary function, which taps the AI to display summaries of an email in the inbox view, rather than just displaying the first few lines of an email, which are often not useful to summarize what an email is. email rings.
- Calendar: In addition to integration with the Reminders app, the new Calendar app will support AI.
- Photos: AI-based photo editing features in the Photos app allow users to make adjustments, remove backgrounds and edit instantly. Additionally, searching for specific photos and videos using natural language will return images of specific people or events.
- Comments: Voice functionality comes to the Notes app, with the ability to add voice memos directly into your notes. AI also supports audio transcription and transcriptions of audio recordings. You can record and transcribe audio, and when your recording is done, the AI will create a summary itself.
5. New and improved Safari
Safari will see a host of improvements powered by AI functionality, including an “Intelligent Search” option that uses on-device AI to summarize search results in the browser in Mac OS Sequoia. Following Apple’s emphasis on security, Safari updates include intelligent tracking prevention that limits what websites can track, while also highlighting the efficiency and speed of the Safari app.
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Apple demonstrated Safari’s machine learning ability to automatically detect relevant information on a web page, including things like quick links, directions, and short summaries of logistical information such as phone numbers and addresses.
6. Standalone Passwords App
In line with Apple’s positioning of its AI features as secure and reliable, it’s releasing an all-new and updated Passwords app in MacOS 15 that consolidates and streamlines your password across all your Apple devices.
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This standalone app is an extension of the existing iCloud Keychain and attempts to simplify password storage by using Face ID and Touch ID in addition to string passwords. Much of it is designed to work automatically and seamlessly in an effort to solve the massive UX headaches everyone has experienced at one time or another.
7. Gaming
Apple wants to create a ‘unified gaming platform’ for the iPhone, iPad and Mac, with high resolution and improved ray tracing. Apple highlighted the sheer number of new titles available on Apple silicon chips, and they look better than ever. Frostpunk 2, Control and UbiSoft include ray tracing and Assasin’s Creed, coming to Apple devices later this year.