It’s something Apple is striving to answer with its own take on the category, Apple Intelligence, which was officially unveiled this week at WWDC 2024.
Apple Intelligence is a more bespoke approach to generative AI, built specifically with the company’s different operating systems at their foundation.
It’s a very Apple approach in the sense that it prioritizes a frictionless user experience above all.
The operating systems also feature a feedback mechanism into which users can report issues with the generative AI system.
This should function the same with all external models Apple partners with, including Google Gemini.
The biggest updates coming to Apple’s iMessage and its Messages app in iOS 18 aren’t its AI emoji, Genmoji, or even the ability to send texts via satellite.
Because of Apple’s longtime refusal to add support for RCS, texting with Android users meant no typing indicators or read receipts, broken group chats, and blurry photos and videos.
Instead, the text box indicates in a light gray font that your texts with someone support both “Text message + RCS,” while the texts themselves are still green.
However, issues that make the Messages app a broken experience for Apple’s customers will be addressed, it seems, as Apple says it will support the standard later this year.
That’s likely why there was no mention of encrypted messaging in Apple’s announcement of RCS.
Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech!
This week, we’re looking at Rippling’s controversial decision to ban some former employees from selling their stock, Carta’s massive valuation drop, a GenZ-focused fintech raise, and more!
But there is one big exception: It has banned former employees who work for a handful of competitors from selling their stock.
What else we’re writingIn early 2022, the fintech startup Bloom was accepted into Y Combinator as the first-ever startup from Sudan to participate in the famed accelerator.
In an unusual move, Capital One is teaming up with payment giants (and rivals) Stripe and Amsterdam-based Adyen to offer a free product aimed at fraud reduction, the financial services giant told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview.
Apple’s WWDC 2024 was packed with announcements about iOS 18, its upcoming version of the iPhone operating system, which introduces a host of new features.
Which devices support iOS 18?
The company says you can download iOS 18 on the following models:iPhone 15iPhone 15 PlusiPhone 15 ProiPhone 15 Pro MaxiPhone 14iPhone 14 PlusiPhone 14 ProiPhone 14 Pro MaxiPhone 13iPhone 13 miniiPhone 13 ProiPhone 13 Pro MaxiPhone 12iPhone 12 miniiPhone 12 ProiPhone 12 Pro MaxiPhone 11iPhone 11 ProiPhone 11 Pro MaxiPhone XSiPhone XS MaxiPhone XRiPhone SE (second generation or later)When will iOS 18 be available to download?
However, if you want to try out iOS 18 a little earlier, the public beta will be available to download next month at beta.apple.com.
You’ll get the most out of the Apple Intelligence features with the iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max since they have the A17 Pro chip.
Win-back subscriptionsApple will let developers reach out to customers who have subscribed to the app to win them back with new offers.
Developers can configure which customers they want to reach out to, and based on that, Apple surfaces win-back offers in the App Store.
“Eligible customers can discover win-back offers across the App Store, including on your product page and in editorial selections on the Today, Games and Apps tabs, as well as within your app,” according to Apple.
Image Credits: AppleImproved search suggestionsApple said that it is adding Focus State to the App Store later this year for improved search.
It gave examples of content creator apps offering subscriptions, apps with large catalogs of content (maybe apps that offer sachet subscriptions to different content), and digital content that spans across different apps managed by one developer.
Google is finally making its Gemini Nano AI model available to Pixel 8 and 8a users after teasing it in March.
The June Pixel drop will allow users to access the model as a developer option.
Apart from that, the feature drop includes Display Port connectivity support for Pixel 8 and Pixel 8a, reverse phone number lookup for unknown numbers, fall and crash detection for Pixel Watch 2, and doorbell notifications on the Pixel tablet.
The update brings manual lens picking in the camera to the Pixel 6 Pro, 7 Pro, and Pixel Fold.
Pixel WatchThe newest Pixel drop brings car crash detection to the Pixel Watch 2.
When Urvashi Barooah applied to MBA programs in 2015, she focused her applications around her dream of becoming a venture capitalist.
She got rejected from every school, and was told she was being unrealistic about her prospects in the venture industry, but she didn’t let that deter her.
She landed a spot at Wharton and said she catered all of her classes and extra cirriculars around learning everything she could about the venture industry.
While growing up with entrepreneur parents didn’t introduce Barooah to venture capital, she thinks her upbringing makes her a better VC.
“I started my journey in venture four years ago and knew nothing,” Barooah said.
Apple is bringing ChatGPT, OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot experience, to Siri and other first-party apps and capabilities across its operating systems.
You can include photos with the questions you ask ChatGPT via Siri, or ask questions related to your docs or PDFs.
Apple’s also integrated ChatGPT into system-wide writing tools like Writing Tools, which lets you create content with ChatGPT — including images — or ask an initial idea and send it to ChatGPT to get a revision or variation back.
ChatGPT integrations will arrive on iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and MacOS Sequoia later this year, Apple says, and will be free without the need to create a ChatGPT or OpenAI account.
Subscribers to one of OpenAI’s ChatGPT premium plans will be able to access paid features within Siri and Apple’s other apps with ChatGPT integrations.
Developers who want to show off apps, or anyone whose iPhone is currently out of reach, will appreciate a new Continuity feature arriving on the new version of macOS Sequoia.
The new OS, announced at WWDC 2024, will allow users to mirror their iPhone screen directly on their Mac and even control it, like swiping through pages on the Home Screen and launching apps via the Mac’s trackpad.
In addition, as Apple showed, it would make it easier to use Mac apps and iPhone apps alongside each other.
When using the feature, users will be able to use the Mac keyboard to enter text and other input into iPhone apps.
Plus, iPhone notifications will appear alongside Mac notifications when it’s mirrored, and users will also be able to interact with them and take action.
Apple announced at WWDC on Monday that iPadOS 18 will include a new “Smart Script” feature that will clean up your handwriting when using an Apple Pencil to write in Notes.
With Smart Script, Apple says it’s making handwriting your notes even smoother and straighter.
The feature improves the appearance of your writing as you write by using on-device machine learning to recreate your handwriting from your notes.
If you need to add to something you have already written, you can tap and hold with your Apple Pencil to create more space.
Apple says Smart Script makes your handwritten notes more effective, fluid and easer to read.
