Not long ago, Apple officially announced that this year's WWDC event will be held at Apple Park from June 11-15, 2024 Beijing time (June 10-14, 2024 Pacific Time).
According to the official introduction, WWDC24 is free and open to all developers, and aims to showcase the cutting-edge innovations of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS and visionOS.
In other words, the much-talked-about new iOS 18 will be officially unveiled at this event.
Now, as time progresses, there is more information about iOS 18.
According to a report from IT Home today, the first AI features of iOS 18 will run entirely on devices.
According to the report, Gurman said in a Q&A session on his Power On newsletter today: "With the world anticipating Apple's blockbuster AI technology on June 10, it now looks like the first features will run entirely on the device." This means that the large language models that power these new features will not be processed in the cloud. ”
Gurman also revealed that Apple may offer some cloud-based AI features in the future, which could be powered by Google's Gemini or other vendors.
Apple has reportedly held discussions with companies such as Google, OpenAI, and China's Baidu about potential generative AI collaborations. While iOS 18 is not expected to include Apple's own ChatGPT-like chatbot, it's unclear if Gemini or other chatbots will be integrated directly into iOS 18.
It was previously reported that iOS 18 will bring new generative AI features to the iPhone's Spotlight search tool, Siri, Safari, Shortcuts, Apple Music, Messages, Health, Numbers, Pages, Keynote, and other apps. Gurman has also previously reported that generative AI will improve Siri's ability to answer complex questions and allow messaging apps to automatically complete sentence input.
In addition to AI features, iOS 18 may support more freedom to customize the home screen.
Allegedly, iOS 18 will allow users to place app icons anywhere on the home screen grid. This means that users are able to create spaces, columns, and rows between app icons.
However, Android users should be familiar with this feature, which has been implemented on Android devices before.
In addition to the tweaks to the arrangement of apps on the home screen, iOS 18 will feature some visionOS-inspired design elements, bringing a design similar to the visionOS operating system, with new tweaks in design elements and UI.
A recent leak also revealed that Apple may be planning to add support for "custom navigation paths" to Apple Maps in iOS 18. Currently, Apple Maps does not provide a way to enter a self-selected navigation route, and only uses Apple's pre-selected options.
In addition, in November 2023, Apple announced that it would start supporting RCS, the cross-platform messaging standard, in the Messages app on the iPhone later in 2024. Based on this timeline, it is speculated that it may become a feature of iOS 18.
It is reported that RCS support should bring some improvements to the messaging experience between iPhone and Android devices.
However, at present, the relevant information about iOS 18 comes from the Internet leaks, what the actual situation is, and the official follow-up announcement is still needed, and interested friends can stay tuned.