Apple Inc. today made more than a half-dozen Apple Intelligence features generally available on recent iPhones, iPads and Macs.

The company also debuted a refreshed version of its iMac desktop, which combines a computer with a monitor. The machine features a new chip, the M4, with an artificial intelligence accelerator described as three times faster than Apple’s 2020 silicon.

Embedded AI 

Apple Intelligence is a collection of AI features that the iPhone maker first detailed in June at its WWDC developer event. Some of the capabilities are built into the company’s operating systems, while others will become available through apps. Behind the scenes, Apple Intelligence is powered by a mix of on-device and cloud-hosted neural networks.

Most of the AI features that debuted today focus on text processing tasks.

On supported devices, consumers can now have Apple Intelligence summarize their notifications and emails. Email summaries appear in the inbox section of the Mail app that Apple preinstalls on its devices. The app is also receiving a second new AI feature, Priority Messages, that automatically identifies important messages and pushes them to the top of the list.

A second set of text processing upgrades is available through a new feature called Writing Tools. It can summarize many types of text, not just notifications and emails, as well as condense prose in other ways. Users can have the feature extract key points from a document, as well as turn it into a list or a spreadsheet table.

The capability lends itself to certain other tasks as well. Apple says that users can have Writing Tools automatically rewrite a piece of text in three styles: professional, friendly or concise.

More Apple Intelligence features will become available in the company’s Photos app and Siri. The AI assistant is being upgraded with a new interface and a capability that allows it to answer technical questions about the user’s device. The Photos app, in turn, now includes an AI tool called Clean Up that provides the ability to remove objects from images quickly. 

Down the road, Apple plans to roll out a second batch of AI features that will allow Apple Intelligence to take on more tasks. One of the capabilities in the works allows users to take a photo of an object such as a street sign and have an AI model generate an explanation. Another upcoming capability, an integration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, will enable Siri to answer more complex questions than it can currently process.

M4-powered iMac

AI was also a focus for Apple during the development of its latest iMac, which debuted today alongside the release of Apple Intelligence. The new desktop is powered by the company’s recently introduced M4 processor. It’s a system-on-chip based on a three-nanometer node that started shipping with the latest iPad Pro this past May.

Like Apple’s previous M-series chips, the M4 includes a Neural Engine optimized for AI workloads. The company says that the accelerator is three times faster than the one in the first-generation M1 that debuted four years ago. The M4 also includes a graphics processing unit, as well as a central processing unit with a core design that Apple describes as the fastest in its category.

The entry-level iMac features a 24-inch 4.5K display with a 12-megapixel camera. Higher-end configurations offer a version of the display made from so-called nano-texture glass, which promises to reduce reflections and glare. Customers can customize other hardware details as well: Apple offers the iMac with between 16 and 32 gigabytes of flash memory as well as up to four Thunderbolt ports.

Image: Apple