Craig Federighi Explains Phased Release of Apple Intelligence Features

[MacRumors]

In a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, Apple's head of software Craig Federighi has highlighted the company's measured, multi-phase approach to introducing Apple Intelligence features, with the initial iOS 18.1 release next week marking just the beginning of a staggered rollout over several months.

"This is a big lift," Federighi told WSJ's Joanna Stern, explaining Apple's cautious strategy of integrating AI into its devices. "You could put something out there and have it be sort of a mess. Apple's point of view is more like, 'Let's try to get each piece right and release it when it's ready.'"

The initial release will focus on basic features including Writing Tools for text summarization, notification summaries, and a Clean Up tool in Photos for removing unwanted objects. While most processing occurs on-device, Apple's Private Cloud Compute system handles more intensive tasks through encrypted servers. In other words, user data isn't stored or accessed for AI training.

Apple's approach differs significantly from other large language models, which typically process all user input on cloud servers. According to Federighi, the company's personally oriented, privacy-first approach is also why Siri won't offer the sort of answers that one might get from something like ChatGPT.

"There's a trade-off across capabilities," he explained. "Those other chatbots are great if you want to ask a question about quantum mechanics, and then have them write a poem about it, but they won't open your garage or send a text message. Will these worlds converge? Of course."

Several anticipated features showcased by Apple at WWDC in June won't appear until later updates: iOS 18.2 is expected before the end of the year, and will introduce Image Playground for generating cartoon-style images and Genmoji for creating custom emoji. The update will also add ChatGPT integration for handling complex Siri queries.

The most significant Siri enhancements are scheduled for iOS 18.4 around March 2025. These include onscreen awareness for contextual commands, personal context for better understanding of user data, and expanded app control capabilities. Initially, Apple Intelligence will only support U.S. English, with additional languages planned for next year.

In contrast to its rivals, Apple is taking a particularly measured approach to image manipulation. The new Clean Up tool in Photos allows users to remove unwanted objects or people from images, but avoids more complex AI-generated alterations like changing the background. "People view photographic content as something they can rely on as indicative of reality," explained Federighi. "It's important to us that we help purvey accurate information, not fantasy."

Speaking more broadly about the rollout of Apple Intelligence features, Federighi said: "This is a many-year, honestly, even decades-long arc of this technology playing out, and so we're going to do it responsibly." The new Apple Intelligence features will be available on iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models, as well as Apple silicon-powered iPads and Macs, when iOS 18.1 launches on October 28.

Article Link: Craig Federighi Explains Phased Release of Apple Intelligence Features

 

[applepotato666]

"You could put something out there and have it be sort of a mess. Apple's point of view is more like, 'Let's try to get each piece right and release it when it's ready.'"

Wow, I wish they thought the same about all the rest of the software

 

[mikefj2004]

In other words, taper your expectations and be prepared for some great add-ons and big disappointments. If Apple AI is anything like what Siri is now, it's an absolute disaster already. It can and I hope should only go up from here.

 

[haemolysis]

I think we’ve all heard that “do it right rather than do it fast” spiel before… but is he really out here trying to tell us they need more time to perfect……. custom emojis? Be real.

 

[8667132]

"You could put something out there and have it be sort of a mess. Apple's point of view is more like, 'Let's try to get each piece right and release it when it's ready.'"

Kind of hard to believe this is the reason given the crazy annual release schedule and the mess of iOS 18 and MacOS 15

 

[wanha]

I think we’ve all heard that “do it right rather than do it fast” spiel before… but is he really out here trying to tell us they need more time to perfect……. custom emojis? Be real.

Is it a spiel though to not rush half-baked garbage out just to excite tech forums?

 

[Kylo83]

Gemini is miles better and ahead of apple, I feel this is Apple’s way to say why it’s a slow roll out

 

[brofkand]

They could have done things like made System Settings make sense, write a good Photos app, etc., but instead they're bolting AI into the OS to make it look like they're on top of things. Apple hasn't written good software in years. The fact that their software is still decent just proves how far ahead they were years ago, and how much they've squandered that lead.

 

[winxmac]

iOS 18 is not the first time they announced a feature/app in WWDC that will be released several months after the public release of iOS version that same year...

• ProRAW was not immediately available when iOS 14 was released
• ProRes was not immediately available when iOS 15 was released
• iPadOS 16.1 was the first release for iPadOS 16 completely skipping iPadOS 16.0
• Journal was not immediately available when iOS 17 was released [and is still not available on iPad to this day]
• Apple Intelligence was supposed to be the selling point of iPhone 16 aside from Camera Control but will only be out of beta maybe a few months before WWDC 2025

These are just some of the few that I can think of...

 

[antiprotest]

I think we’ve all heard that “do it right rather than do it fast” spiel before… but is he really out here trying to tell us they need more time to perfect……. custom emojis? Be real.

Even when they are very late, they never get things right on first try. It's still buggy and broken at launch. It has always been an excuse and users gaslighting themselves to defend Apple.

 

[Etc_]

Is it a spiel though to not rush half-baked garbage out just to excite tech forums?

If your recent past (last few years) has proven otherwise, then yes, it is.

 

[BlairMALL]

The real challenge regarding his explanation is that you have to explain subsequent bugs, misfires, and fails as a complete surprise. In other words, how do you explain problems when you supposedly ‘got it right.’

 

[Jay Tee]

Better to skip the iPhone 16 family altogether and wait till Apple sorts things out. This time next year, they’ll have a better sense of hardware requirements and enough time to fix the bugs.

It's all still in Beta now.

 

[redbeard331]

Gotta wonder if Siri will even improve at the basics with 18.4? Right now Siri is still garbage.

I tried asking Siri to navigate to a coffee shop that I have saved in my library. Gave it about 20 tries and gave up as it never found it. It did keep trying to navigate me to places I did not ask for though, the last time I asked, it navigated me to the wrong place, so I told Siri to stop navigation, and what does Siri reply with? She says something like “you aren’t using navigation”, like ok 🙄

So anyways, I open the Google app, ask it to navigate me to the coffee shop, and it quickly finds the shop and spells it correctly, then quickly opens up google maps and starts navigating me there. First time, perfect, Apple is so far behind.

 

[Rogifan]

Mark Gurman posted some cryptic message on Threads asking why Craig Federighi was doing this interview abs not someone from the AI team and said it wasn’t because he’s Apple’s best public speaker. I don’t think there’s any mystery here. If it’s hardware John Ternus speaks and if it’s software, Craig Federighi does. The only deviation really is Apple Watch which Jeff Williams owns.

 

[Rogifan]

iOS 18 is not the first time they announced a feature/app in WWDC that will be released several months after the public release of iOS version that same year...

• ProRAW was not immediately available when iOS 14 was released
• ProRes was not immediately available when iOS 15 was released
• iPadOS 16.1 was the first release for iPadOS 16 completely skipping iPadOS 16.0
• Journal was not immediately available when iOS 17 was released [and is still not available on iPad to this day]
• Apple Intelligence was supposed to be the selling point of iPhone 16 aside from Camera Control but will only be out of beta maybe a few months before WWDC 2025

These are just some of the few that I can think of...

What about portrait mode? Didn’t that come late? Anyway Apple was upfront that this wasn’t all dropping at once so Joanna’s question about that was kinda dumb. She wants to make it seem like Apple dropped the ball but of course if they pushed out everything at once and it sucked she’d be one of the first mocking it.

 

[loby]

Sounds like the typical Apple fanfare…hype it out at first as if it is the best thing in the world, and then tone down the hype once it is about to launch.

Nothing new with Apple.

 

[d5aqoëp]

Apple Intelligence is still restricted to US EN it?

 

[wanha]

If your recent past (last few years) has proven otherwise, then yes, it is.

not saying you're wrong, but what part's been half baked garbage?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

The real challenge regarding his explanation is that you have to explain subsequent bugs, misfires, and fails as a complete surprise. In other words, how do you explain problems when you supposedly ‘got it right.’

...with lines like "only a small number of people are affected" or just pretending like there is no issue at all until media with broad reach covers it in a very visible way and then sling the "only a small number" line while scrambling to find a fix.

We've seen this movie a hundred times before. We know how this goes.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

He needs a haircut.

 

[TechnoTiger3000]

Isn't the real problem that Apple doesn't use user data to improve their AI systems? Why not anonymize the data to train these models more effectively? If Apple had done this, we wouldn’t be waiting over a decade for Siri to stop being such a pain.

 

[Etc_]

not saying you're wrong, but what part's been half baked garbage?

I mean, in terms of hardware, the most recent one is the iPad Mini. But mainly, I’m referring to software, Apple keeps releasing half-baked software full of bugs all the time. But besides the bugs, I read a good comment a few days ago (I think it was on MacRumors, too) that Apple is releasing abandonware. They release new apps and features then barely touch them ever again, or at best, only every few years. A few examples: the Journal app (which really needs an iPad version), and Freeform, which was released the same year they introduced new pen styles in the Notes app. But it took them until the next major OS release to add those pen options to Freeform (why?), Fitness+ (at least it good a few smaller updates) could be so much better with more features (it is a paid service, do better!), and many more. Nowadays, they only seem to update apps to include more ads (Stocks, App Store, etc.).

 

[TechnoTiger3000]

Mark Gurman posted some cryptic message on Threads asking why Craig Federighi was doing this interview abs not someone from the AI team and said it wasn’t because he’s Apple’s best public speaker. I don’t think there’s any mystery here. If it’s hardware John Ternus speaks and if it’s software, Craig Federighi does. The only deviation really is Apple Watch which Jeff Williams owns.

Why does it matter who's talking? It's always the marketing team's script anyway, never anything real.

Ps: Using 'abs' that way should get you banned.

 

[DrJR]

I very much appreciate their concern with preserving "truth". The thought put into the photo cleanup tool, for example. This tells me that they are thinking very deeply about preserving our privacy; it isn't just lip service. I still have some hope there will be a megacorp that helps shield us from the digital gulag others are racing to build.

I also like that he pointed out the difference between LLM's and what Siri does. It made me think a little differently about what my expectations of these tools are.