Apple’s iOS 18 could bring the “biggest” software update in the iPhone’s history, according to a January edition of Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter. In November, Gurman wrote that iOS 18 could bring “relatively groundbreaking” updates to the iPhone complete with “major new features and designs.”
The news comes as flagship smartphones play a major role in the generative AI hype cycle. Last fall, Google debuted its flagship Pixel 8 lineup with souped-up AI tricks, and in January, Samsung launched the Galaxy S24 series complete with Galaxy AI. It’s likely Apple will go in the same direction with the expected iPhone 16 and iOS 18. CEO Tim Cook has teased such a possibility.
“We’ve got some things that we are incredibly excited about that we’ll be talking about later this year,” Cook said an earnings call in February in response to a question about generative AI.
To be clear, Apple already has AI features on its iPhones like its photo duplication detection feature, but we’ve yet to see how gen AI will factor into the iPhone and iOS in a major way. With iOS 17, Apple included a slew of AI-powered features like the ability to clone your own voice on the iPhone (which is a form of gen AI) and an updated keyboard with better autocorrect. But the company stopped short of unveiling generative AI products along the lines of Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s Chat GPT. Still, the rumor mill points to meaningful changes in iOS 18. Here are the most credible ones.