Apple Intelligence is Apple’s take on AI, and it looks to fundamentally change the way we interact with technology, blending advanced machine learning and AI capabilities into everyday devices.

Promising more conversational prose from Siri, automated proofreading and text summarization across apps, and lightning-fast image generation, Apple’s AI ecosystem is designed to enhance user experiences and streamline operations across its product lineup. Here’s everything you need to know about Apple’s transformational new AI.

Apple Intelligence release date and compatibility

Apple Intelligence was originally slated for formal release in September, coinciding with the roll out of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. However, as Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported, Apple subsequently decided to slightly delay the release of Intelligence. It is currently available to developers, though it’s looking unlikely that Apple Intelligence will be released publicly before the 18.1 roll out scheduled for October, per Gurman.

NEW: Apple Intelligence will arrive later than anticipated, coming in iOS 18.1 and iPadOS 18.1 in October and missing the initial September releases. Still, 18.1 will go into beta for developers this week. https://t.co/LqXDvjO6ef

— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) July 28, 2024

The company has specified that, at least initially, the AI features will be available on the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, as well as iPads and Macs with M1 or newer chips (and presumably the iPhone 16 handsets as well, since they’ll all be running iOS 18). What’s more, the features are only available at launch when the user language is set to English.

Why the cutoff? Well, Apple has insisted that the processes are too intensive for older hardware, as they utilize the more advanced neural engines, GPUs, and CPUs of these newer chips.

Users who run an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max part of Apple’s Developer program gained access to an early version of Intelligence in July with the release of iOS 18.1 beta.

New AI features

No matter what device you’re using Apple Intelligence with, the AI will focus primarily on three functions: writing assistance, image creation and editing, and enhancing Siri’s cognitive capabilities.

In addition, iPadOS, when paired with Apple Pencil, will unlock more features. Smart Script in the Notes app, for example, will straighten and smooth handwritten text in real time. The new Math Notes calculator will automatically solve written equations in the user’s own handwriting and generate interactive graphs based on those equations with a single tap.

We at Digital Trends have already taken Apple Intelligence for a spin using MacOS Sierra beta, but have come away rather disappointed with what we’ve seen so far from the digital agent. For one, only a fraction of the AI tools are actually available to use through the beta release. And the tools we did have access to, including the writing assistant, Siri, and audio transcription, proved buggy and unreliable. Granted, yes, these are the prototypes and will surely be further refined before being approved for public release but from what we’ve seen so far, Apple Intelligence’s presumed October release might prove too ambitious a deadline.

Writing Tools

The new Writing Tools feature will be integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia upon launch. It can proofread the user’s writing and rewrite sections as necessary, as well as summarize text across Apple’s application ecosystem including Mail, Notes, and Pages. Third-party developers will be able to leverage Writing Tools in their own apps via API calls.

For example, within the Mail app, Apple Intelligence will provide the user with short summaries of the contents of their inbox, rather than showing them the first couple lines of the email itself. Smart Reply will suggest responses based on the contents of the message and ensure that the reply addresses all of the questions posed in the original email. The app will even move more timely and pertinent correspondence to the top of the inbox via Priority Messages.

The Notes app will see significant improvements as well. With Apple Intelligence, Notes will offer new audio transcription and summarization features, as well as an integrated calculator, dubbed Math Notes, that solves equations typed into the body of the note.

Image Playground

Image creation and editing functions will largely be handled by the new Image Playground app, wherein users will be able to spin up generated pictures within seconds and in one of three artistic styles: Animation, Illustration, and Sketch. Image Playground will exist as a standalone app, with many of its features and functions integrated with other Apple apps like Messages.

Apple Intelligence is also coming to your camera roll. The Memories function in the Photos app was already capable of automatically identifying the most significant people, places, and pets in a user’s life, then curating that set of images into a coherent collection set to music. With Apple Intelligence, Memories is getting even better.

The AI will select the photos and videos that best match the user’s input prompt (“best friends road trip to LA 2024,” for example). it will then generate a storyline — including chapters based on themes the AI finds in the selected images — and assemble the whole thing into a short film. Photos users will also gain access to Clean Up, a tool akin to Google’s Magic Eraser, and improved Search functions once Apple Intelligence clears the public beta.

Siri

Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of Apple Intelligence’s new capabilities will be Siri. Apple’s long-suffering digital assistant will become more deeply integrated into the operating system, with more conversational speech and improved natural language processing.

What’s more, Siri’s memory will be more persistent, allowing the agent to remember details from previous conversations, while the user will be able to more seamlessly switch between spoken and written prompts.

Apple Intelligence privacy

In order to avoid the costly and embarrassing data leaks that some of its competitors have suffered in recent months, Apple has put privacy at the front and center of the Apple Intelligence experience, even going so far as to build out its own private and secure AI compute cloud, named Private Cloud Compute (PCC), to handle complex user queries.

Most of Apple Intelligence’s routine operations will be handled on-device, using the company’s most recent generations of A17 and M-family processors, said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, during WWDC 2024. “It’s aware of your personal data, without collecting your personal data,” he added.

“When you make a request, Apple Intelligence analyzes whether it can be processed on-device,” Federighi continued. “If it needs greater computational capacity, it can draw on Private Cloud Compute and send only the data that’s relevant to your task to be processed on Apple silicon servers.” This should drastically reduce the chances of private user data being hacked, intercepted, spied upon, and otherwise snooped while in transit between the device and PCC.

“Your data is never stored or made accessible to Apple,” he explained. “It’s used exclusively to fulfill your request and, just like your iPhone, independent experts can inspect the code that runs on these servers to verify this privacy promise.”

Apple Intelligence’s ChatGPT partnership

Apple Intelligence won’t be the only cutting-edge generative AI taking up residence in your Apple devices come this fall. During WWDC, Apple and OpenAI executives announced that the two companies are launching a partnership that will see ChatGPT functionality (powered by GPT-4o) — including image and text generation — integrated into Siri and Writing Tools. Like Apple Intelligence, ChatGPT will step in if Siri’s onboard capabilities aren’t sufficient for the user’s query, except that ChatGPT will instead send the request to OpenAI’s public compute cloud rather than the PCC.

Users won’t have to navigate away from the Siri screen when leveraging ChatGPT’s capabilities, Siri will state the answer regardless of where the query was handled. To ensure at least a semblance of privacy protections, the device will prompt the user for permission before transmitting the request, along with any documents or images the user has attached.

Apple Intelligence trained on Google’s Tensor Processing Units

A research paper from Apple, published in July, reveals that the company opted to train key components of the Apple Intelligence model using Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) instead of Nvidia’s highly sought-after GPU-based systems. According to the research team, utilizing TPUs allowed them to harness enough computational power needed to train its enormous LLM, as well as do so more energy efficiently than they could have using a standalone system.

I’ve dabbled in streaming in the past, but I am definitely not a streamer. I play my games alone, with a little music turned on in the background and plenty of volume to get me immersed. So, devices like the wildly popular Elgato Stream Deck never appealed to me.

I could see the utility of having dedicated buttons for productivity purposes, but I couldn’t justify actually spending money on a device. But then Cooler Master’s Stream Deck competitor, the MasterHub, showed up on my doorstep.

The modular desktop control panel is squarely targeting the Stream Deck, but Cooler Master has a unique approach on a desktop control center. It’s fully modular, allowing you to mix, match, and swap out different components instantly to make a command center uniquely suited to you. The MasterHub won’t get me started on streaming, but it quickly became second nature for accessing some of my most frequent settings, files, and applications.

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What you make of it

The MasterHub is fully modular. The device itself is just a plastic base with a slew of gold-plated pins, and you add modules on top that secure themselves magnetically. That allows you not only to choose what modules you want on your MasterHub but also how they’re laid out. I wrote off that second point when I saw the MasterHub earlier this year, but it makes a huge difference.

I used the large dial module with an IPS display in the bottom-left corner of the device, and given that the MasterHub is set up on the right side of my desk, it’s the closest control to my hands. If I were streaming, however, I might put the 15-key IPS display module closer to my hand, or if I was using Photoshop controls, I might use the precision fader module.

There are various different versions of the Stream Deck, but the MasterHub’s modular approach is truly something special. You have to adapt your workflow to one of the Stream Deck’s layouts, and although Elgato makes that easy to do, it’s still a transition. The MasterHub adapts to your workflow. You set up the modules you want in the layout you want, and you can even double-up on modules if you need more controls of a specific type.

You can change the layout at any time, too. Cooler Master has done a great job of making the MasterHub feel responsive to changes. While writing this article, I swapped every module I had set up to go from a horizontal orientation to a vertical orientation, and everything populated to the correct orientation with my correct settings within seconds. You can store multiple profiles through the MasterHub software (more on that next), so it’s not out of the question to completely change the layout for different purposes.

I’ve touched on a few of the modules here, but overall, Cooler Master has five modules for the MasterHub now. There’s the large dial with an IPS display and the 15-key IPS display module, but Cooler Master also offers a module with dual scroller wheels, a module with three knobs, and a module with five mini faders. That’s a solid starting lineup, but I suspect Cooler Master will design and release more modules over time. When I visited the company’s headquarters earlier this year, for example, it showed off a dedicated display module that could slot into the MasterHub base.

Tactile response

Although the Stream Deck and MasterHub are targeted at streaming, it’s hard to overstate how nice it is having tactile knobs and buttons for digital controls. I can control my volume with a large knob, scroll webpages with a roller, and launch my frequent apps like Steam and Discord with a button. I even set up a couple of hotkeys I use commonly as buttons, including turning on HDR and opening the volume mixer in Windows.

All of this comes together with the MasterHub software, which is easy to use but a bit barebones at the moment. You’ll find a list of commands on the right side, which you can filter by selecting a knob or button. Once you find the setting you want, you drag it over to the knob or button you want to assign it to. If it’s a button, you can use one of several icons Cooler Master includes or upload your own, as well as rename the assignment.

The most powerful module is undoubtedly the 15-key IPS display, where all of the actions in MasterHub are available. There are dozens of settings for your system and getting around your PC, from launching websites or applications to triggering hotkeys to adjusting media. MasterHub has a multitasking option, as well, allowing you to trigger a series of actions with a single button press. And, if 15 keys isn’t enough for you, you can store multiple pages and flip through them directly from the keypad.

There are a good amount of options for your system and MasterHub (as well as Cooler Master’s MasterCTRL with a compatible cooler), but these types of control pads live and die by their integrations. And out of the gate, Cooler Master has a good suite of options available. For streamers, you have controls for both OBS Studio and Streamlabs. Both include options to start and stop streaming, transition between scenes, and control your various audio sources. There are definitely more options for OBS, though. You can control the virtual camera, apply a filter, and much more.

Options for Twitch are available, too, from triggering an ad to chat settings to making a clip. Cooler Master doesn’t have controls for any other streaming platform, however. That’s not going to be a big deal in most cases, but the Stream Deck has controls for just about every platform you could want.

Somewhere the MasterHub has a leg up is Adobe apps, or at least Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and Illustrator. You’ll find controls for all of these apps in MasterHub, free of charge. The Stream Deck technically supports these apps — and even more Adobe apps — but you’ll need to spend $15 for the hotkeys and icons for each if you don’t want to set up the controls manually.

Although Cooler Master has a solid number of options out of the gate, it needs a lot of work. There are so many tools that benefit from this type of control center, and Cooler Master doesn’t have a system to integrate those tools yet.

Cooler Master needs to go further

Cooler Master could make the best Stream Deck alternative in the world, and it wouldn’t matter. Elgato has had years to build up a large library of plugins from first- and third-party sources that you can download directly to the Stream Deck, and usually for free. Cooler Master doesn’t have that yet. The company says it will launch a marketplace for plugins at some point, but it will really come down to community interest if that marketplace is worth investing in or not.

The other issue is price. The MasterHub kit is very expensive. You can pick up the basic streaming kit with faders, rollers, and the 15-key display for $299 on the MasterHub Kickstarter now, but it will be $399 when it officially launches. And if you want all of the modules, you’ll spend $399 now or $549 when it officially launches. Meanwhile, the Stream Deck+ will run you $200, and you can get a basic Stream Deck for less than $150.

The MasterHub appeals to those who need a lot of controls, not just a few shortcuts. It offers some clear advantages over a regular Stream Deck, but it also comes in at a much higher price. Cooler Master has built a solid foundation, but I’d hold off on investing in the ecosystem until we can see what the marketplace has to offer, as well as what Cooler Master plans to do with its modular system in the future.