As WWDC 2025 (Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference) comes into view (it takes place on Monday, June 9) there is a lot riding on Apple to get it right with Apple Intelligence this time after the fallout from last year’s WWDC when Apple promised a lot of new features, but failed to deliver the really important ones, like a new AI-powered Siri.
Last year, Apple made the classic mistake of demonstrating features that it hadn’t really got working as if they were real. When it became apparent that Apple wouldn’t be able to get the features ready in time, Tim Cook’s technology giant had to pull them from release and was left with AI-flavored egg on their Genmoji-shaped faces.
To be fair, Apple did manage to release some of its Apple Intelligence features, like the writing tools, ChatGPT integration, notifications, and the aforementioned Genmojis, but these new AI features already seemed out of date when they launched because of the warp speed of AI innovation.
While Apple was trying to get us excited about emojis featuring our faces, the rest of the world was chatting with AI using their voice in Gemini Live and ChatGPT’s voice mode.
Apple’s development speed, with its traditional once-a-year operating system update, suddenly looked glacial compared to OpenAI and Google, which seem to have taken over the job of writing our future.
In some ways, WWDC 2025 is Apple’s chance to balance the books, reset its ambitions for AI, and show us how, by focusing on great hardware and software integration, it can still be relevant in the modern age of AI, because it can. After all, Google Gemini or ChatGPT runs just as well on an iPhone 16 as it does on a Pixel 9 or a Samsung Galaxy S25.
Thanks to the ever-reliable Marc Gurman and his Power On newsletter, there are some Apple Intelligence features that we think are definitely going to be announced at WWDC 2025, so let’s take a look at those first:
1. Opening up Apple Intelligence to third-party developers
Apple will be opening up its existing Apple Intelligence models to third-party developers. This will let iPhone app developers access the AI features on iPhone that we’re already familiar with, like writing summaries, or even use Apple’s models to create their own innovative AI features.
Apple’s existing AI models have about 3 billion parameters, which sounds like a lot, but that’s far less than the cloud-powered AI’s from OpenAI and Google. However, Apple’s models are perfect for lightweight tasks that can be done on the iPhone without needing to access the cloud.
2. A new AI battery management system
A new battery management system doesn’t sound like the most interesting thing in the world, but anything that helps us get more life out of an iPhone battery sounds like a good idea.
Details are sparse at the moment, but the idea would be that Apple Intelligence will analyze how you use your device and make clever adjustments to help you conserve energy.
3. Live language translation with AirPods
Now this one sounds genuinely exciting! It’s tied to an update to the AirPods software and iOS 19 (or iOS 26, its new name), but it is going to use AI to help in live language translation through your AirPods.
This may sound more like science fiction than reality, but if Apple can get this working flawlessly, it could be a feature that sets Apple apart from its competitors.
In addition to all these new AI features, we’re expecting Apple to quietly rebrand a lot of its existing features in apps like Safari and Photos as “AI-powered.”
What I’d like to see
So, that’s what Marc Gurman thinks we’ll get for sure, but Apple will be bound to have a few surprises for us up its sleeve on the day. Here’s what I hope we’ll see as well:
1. AI background noise reduction
Surprisingly, one of the biggest cheers from the crowd at the last Samsung AI event was when it demonstrated how AI could effortlessly reduce the background noise, like wind or chatter, in videos using a tool called Audio Eraser.
I think people cheered because they could actually see an example of AI that they’d actually use! Apple has this feature already for the iPhone 16, but it’s only available if you edit a video clip, and it’s tucked away in various settings and not easily accessible.
If Apple can make it easier to use and work on any audio or video clips, then I think it would have a guaranteed hit on its hands.
2. Tighter AI integration
If we can’t have an AI-powered Siri quite yet, then at least make it easier to integrate existing AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini into iOS.
Yes, Siri currently calls on ChatGPT when a question becomes too complicated, but the process feels a bit awkward and slow.
How about integrating ChatGPT more directly into iOS so that you can use it for performing functions on the iPhone, like opening apps and finding options in Settings?
I’m sorry Apple, but you are lagging behind Google and Samsung significantly in the area of AI image manipulation. When we compared Galaxy AI’s photo editing tool to Apple Intelligence’s Clean Up, the results weren’t even close.
People expect so much more from AI these days. We want to be able to produce photorealistic images from prompts, not cute AI graphics in Image Studio that don’t look realistic. And when we edit photos, we want the ability to be able to remove objects from an image and add new ones flawlessly using AI.
Apple needs to step up its game significantly here, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask that it does it at this year’s WWDC 2025.
