Apple Intelligence shown off at WWDC 2024 – Image Credit: Apple
The upcoming WWDC keynote may not help raise the profile and functionality of Apple Intelligence much, with a report claiming Apple’s AI announcements will be sparse, and disappointing.
Following the introduction of Apple Intelligence at WWDC in 2024, the AI effort at Apple has endured an agonizingly slow and rocky rollout. While the 2025 event offers an opportunity for Apple to turn things around, a report offers little hope that Apple will do just that.
According to Sunday’s “Power On” newsletter from Bloomberg, sources within Apple believe that WWDC will be a disappointment form an AI perspective. In the wake of the Google I/O keynote offering massive new AI features and advancements, WWDC could make Apple seem like it is falling behind the rest of the industry.
The 2025 WWDC is said to be somewhat smaller in scope compared to the 2023 and 2024 versions. However, there is the belief that after a year-long break, it will try hard to innovate for WWDC 2026.
This is a considerably risky move for Apple, or for any tech company to make. Especially when competitors are developing and introducing new technologies to increase an already massive perceived lead.
Few improvements
As for what Apple could end up demonstrating at WWDC 2025, the list is so far disappointingly small, if the report is to be believed.
The biggest and most consequential change should be the decision to open up Apple’s Foundation Models to third-party app developers. Doing so will allow developers to use the same on-device processing and models for existing Apple Intelligence features, including image generation and text summarization.
Those models won’t be as good as the cloud-based ones, with the local LLMs being at around 3 billion parameters. However, they would enable developers to perform on-device processing of queries.
Other AI features anticipated to launch include a new power management mode to more intelligently manage the battery of an iPhone. A Translate app update is also expected, which will leverage AirPods and Siri.
