Just before the year’s end, ChatGPT has officially arrived on the iOS ecosystem, with full support for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
This marks OpenAI’s fifth major year-end announcement, with CEO Sam Altman posting on X platform after the event:
“Now ChatGPT is just a button away!”
The collaboration between Apple and OpenAI began at WWDC in June this year.
In October, Apple released its first wave of Apple Intelligence features, though writing tools, the redesigned Siri (with marquee light effects), and notification summaries remained relatively conservative.
Today’s update brings more practical Apple Intelligence features, which will be rolled out to users through iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 updates.
These include Genmoji for creating custom emojis, Image Playground and Image Wand for image generation, and ChatGPT integration with Siri.
However, disappointingly, Apple Intelligence is currently not available in mainland China and is primarily open to users in specific English-speaking regions.
In iOS 18.2’s AI features, Image Playground allows users to create fun and unique images, such as animations or illustrations.
Greg Joswiak, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, just shared his latest creation on X platform.
Image Wand can intelligently recognize and convert handwritten notes and sketches into images in Notes.
Chatting with friends no longer requires borrowing others’ stickers. Genmoji allows users to create custom emojis directly from the keyboard and sync them across all devices via iCloud.
The writing tool adds a new “Describe your change” option to its existing “rewrite,” “proofread,” and “summarize” features.
This allows users to specify AI text modifications, from resume polishing to turning invitations into poetry, adding more possibilities to text creation. Like all writing tool features, this functionality is integrated into the system and many third-party applications.
ChatGPT’s integration with Siri is the highlight of this update.
Users can now access OpenAI’s ChatGPT (GPT-4o version) directly through Siri or writing tools. APPSO has previously tested Apple Intelligence, which you can review.
Apple’s visual intelligence has finally caught up with the times. One-click object recognition is basic, but it can also summarize and copy text, translate across languages, and extract phone numbers.
Additionally, camera controls allow users to search Google and view and purchase items – what you see is what you can buy. In classrooms, when encountering complex charts, ChatGPT can help interpret them.
Of course, more significant updates are still to come.
Apple indicates that more Apple Intelligence updates will be released next year, including a major evolution for Siri, particularly in cross-app operations. We’re eagerly awaiting the arrival of “Jarvis.”
Apple users can use ChatGPT integration without registration, though ChatGPT Plus accounts will naturally have a better experience. Regarding privacy, Apple has implemented protective measures.
OpenAI won’t store private records or use user data to train their models.
In terms of compatibility, Apple Intelligence will be available on iPhone 16 series, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPads with A17 Pro or M1 and later, and Macs with M1 and later processors.
During the livestream event, OpenAI hosts demonstrated the main updates released today.
For instance, when planning a Christmas party, you just need to wake up Siri, and ChatGPT will plan everything for you, from guest lists to music selection and entertainment programs, focusing on attention to detail.
Creating holiday playlists is no problem either – it can even add personalized emojis to your playlist or design a cute frog album cover. All your conversations with Siri are saved in the chat history for future reference.
However, the actual capabilities will only be known after hands-on experience.
When demonstrating the visual intelligence features, the host asked it to evaluate the sweaters of today’s three hosts. ChatGPT not only selected Altman’s sweater as the most distinctive but also provided reasonable evaluation criteria.
Finally, the host created an interesting trophy using the pattern from Altman’s sweater.
In professional office scenarios, Apple Intelligence also shows impressive performance. When switching from iPhone to Mac for complex tasks, Siri will assess whether to utilize ChatGPT’s capabilities.
For example, when the host needed to visualize the technical impact from a PDF document, the system could automatically analyze the content, deduce the relative importance of various technologies, and generate intuitive pie charts for better document comprehension.
Through system-level deep integration, ChatGPT is gradually becoming an indispensable organic component of Apple devices.
Although it came a bit late and the features still have room for improvement, the direction is correct. Truly integrating AI into life indeed requires such gradual exploration.
The ideal AI integration isn’t about seeing its presence, but rather not feeling its presence at all.
As Altman said at the end of the livestream, they hope users can use ChatGPT in more scenarios in more natural ways.
APPSO will also bring an in-depth review of this update in the future, so stay tuned.