Apple is expected to unveil iOS 18 and a host of other software updates at WWDC 2024 on Monday, June 10 – but in the meantime, we’ve seen an intriguing early look at some of the new features coming.
These upgrades include the Apple Mail app and, as you’d expect, AI. Sources spoken to AppleInsider have outlined how email on the iPhone will get a boost, through an AI initiative within Apple apparently called Project Blackpearl.
The “substantial improvements” include smarter search in Mail, so you’ll see information from your contacts, relevant locations, and locally stored documents when you perform a search in the app.
A new ‘smart reply’ feature is also said to be on the way. If it works like the feature of the same name already available in Gmail, you’ll get quick automatic replies to messages that you can just click to send. If you handle a significant amount of email in a day, it could potentially save you a lot of time.
Writing and categorizing
It looks like some sort of ChatGPT-style generative AI text feature is on the way as well. For example, you can ask Siri to make the text in an email more professional or informal. It sounds like you can even get suggestions on how to improve the composition of an email draft.
Email categorization will also be boosted with AI, says AppleInsider. This means emails can be prioritized based on their content and sender, and split into categories such as promotions, social, and transactional (again, just like Gmail).
Apparently Siri will also get some smart summary skills (as previously rumored). You can quickly get summaries of emails, email threads, messages, notifications, notes, web articles and more. These summaries can be anything from a handful of words to an entire paragraph.
AppleInsider also discusses some of the other rumored upgrades we’ve heard before for Siri, including a new ability to interact with apps and photo editing skills. This will all be made official on Monday and we’ll be covering the WWDC 2024 event live from 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST on June 10 (1am ACT on the next date in Australia).