WWDC 2024: iOS 18 with AI, macOS 15, and more

4 months ago

At WWDC 2024, Apple is expected to show off new AI features for the iPhone, iPad, and more. It’s Apple’s chance to show that it can keep pace with Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot products, and we’re expecting to hear plenty about its efforts throughout the event. Tim Cook has even promised as much, saying back in February that generative AI features are coming “later this year.”

Apple’s keynote starts on Monday, June 10th, at 1PM ET / 10AM PT. The event is streaming online, and you’ll be able to follow The Verge for live updates.

WWDC is Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, which, this year, runs from June 10th to June 14th in Cupertino, California. Apple will share details and host workshops for the new macOS 15, iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and other operating systems. Just a year ago, WWDC was all about Apple’s Vision Pro mixed reality headset, but that hype has simmered down since its launch in February. This year’s event might include an OpenAI partnership, a better Siri, and improved Settings for the iPhone and Mac.

Scroll on down for all the latest news coming out of WWDC 2024.

iOS 18, AI, and a celebration of TOPS.
With the countdown to the WWDC 2024 keynote now sliding through its last hour, you can prepare with The Vergecast crew for all of the questions we’re expecting to have answered in just a few minutes
Apple’s AI opportunity is all about the big picture
Image: The Verge
We’ve seen two approaches to AI in mobile tech this year: “AI That’s Not Your Phone” and “AI That Does Random Stuff on Your Phone.”
The “Not Your Phone” group includes devices like the Rabbit R1 and the Humane AI Pin, two small gadgets that sought to make AI more useful by building it into a smaller, simpler gadget. It hasn’t gone very well. Both devices came with big promises to help us get things done without looking at our phone screens. Neither delivered.
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Apple’s next nebulous idea: smart home robots
Image: The Verge, Getty Images
Humanoid robots are one of those dreams that sometimes feel like we’re on the precipice of realizing. Boston Dynamics has its Atlas robot, and Tesla is pursuing robotics, while companies like Mercedes, Amazon, and BMW are or will be testing robots for industrial use. But those are all very expensive robots performing tasks in controlled environments. In the home, they might still be far off.
Enter Apple. Mark Gurman at Bloomberg has said its robotics projects are under the purview of former Google employee John Giannandrea, who has been in charge of Siri and, for a time, the Apple Car. With the car project canceled, the Vision Pro launched, and “Apple Intelligence” around the corner, is that the next big thing?
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Apple needs to show us the other half of the iPad Pro
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
At last month’s iPad Pro M4 launch, Tim Cook said it was “the biggest day for iPad since its introduction.” That was pretty clearly not the case: it was a day of really nice incremental hardware updates to a tablet that already had more power than most people know what to do with.
But Cook’s proclamation could still be true, at least in retrospect. Apple just needs to stick the landing and use WWDC to show us a powerful operating system that’s worthy of the new iPad Pro’s powerful hardware.
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Is Apple about to finally launch the real Siri?
Phil Schiller may have slightly overstated Siri’s initial abilities.
Photo by Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images
When Apple first launched Siri in 2011 alongside the iPhone 4S, the company made a series of very compelling ads showing how you might use this newfangled voice assistant thing. In one, Zooey Deschanel asks her phone about delivering tomato soup; in another, John Malkovich asks for some existential life advice. There’s also one with Martin Scorsese shuffling his schedule from the back of a New York City taxi. They showed reminders, weather, alarms, and more. The point of the ads was that Siri was a useful, constant companion, one that could tackle whatever you needed. No apps or taps necessary. Just ask.
Siri was a big deal for Apple. At the launch event for the 4S, Apple’s Phil Schiller said Siri was the best feature of the new device. “For decades, technologists have teased us with this dream that you’re going to be able to talk to technology and it’ll do things for us,” he said. “But it never comes true!” All we really want to do, he said, is talk to our device any way we want and get information and help. In a moment of classic Apple bravado, Schiller proclaimed Apple had solved it.
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Apple’s AI moment is coming
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge
Starting this fall, it appears Siri is going to be much more powerful. Whether this is good news or a harbinger of infinite technological frustration depends on how you feel about Siri, AI, virtual assistants, and the whole idea that your devices should be able to do stuff on your behalf. Either way, it seems virtually certain that at Apple’s WWDC event on Monday, we’re going to hear an awful lot about how Siri can make your life better.
This year’s WWDC is actually an important one for Apple. CEO Tim Cook and others have been hinting that this is when Apple will reveal its grand plans for AI and end the notion that Apple is somehow behind Google, OpenAI, and the rest. What will it look like, though? Who knows! But it’s going to be AI, and it’s going to be everywhere.
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What to expect at WWDC 2024
Image: The Verge
Every year, Apple’s WWDC comes third after Google’s I/O and Microsoft’s Build developer conferences, and Apple has hardly ever needed to announce a product in response. This time, however, things are different.
Over the past month, Apple’s biggest rivals presented bold plans for AI, with Google showing its latest Gemini models and Microsoft revealing powerful Copilot features like Recall. Now, Apple has to step up to the plate and show that it isn’t far behind in bringing its customers useful generative AI experiences.
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Apple might reveal a new ‘Passwords’ app next week
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images
Apple is planning to introduce a new app called Passwords to help users manage their login information, according to a report from Bloomberg. The company will reportedly introduce the device at its Worldwide Developers Conference event next week.
Apple already lets you save your passwords across your iPhone, iPad, or Vision Pro using iCloud Keychain. The new app would sync the same way but with logins separated into different categories, such as accounts, Wi-Fi networks, and passkeys. However, Bloomberg says the new Passwords app would extend support for Windows as well — there’s no word about support for Android.
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