Unlike Sir Keir Starmer ( who , rather ominously , say he wants tomainline the technologyinto Britain ’s veins ) I ’m generally pessimistic about AI . We may not be verbalize existential doom — if you need me , the probability of humanity being wiped out by AI are no gamy than 60 or 70 percent — but excrete job and spreading misinformation is bad enough . I just ca n’t see this affair terminate well .
Still , every swarm has a silver lining . The future may be gloomy , thanks to the incarnate world ’s unthinking embrace of AI ’s in question merits , but the situation is bring some benefits in the short term . And frankly , I think we should take the wins where we can find them .
I ’m talking , of course , about Apple Intelligence specifically . part because I ’m more interested in Apple than other tech companies , and partly because Apple ’s AI platform is that much more likely to be jolly cumber by societal ethics and the principles of data privacy . The companyisn’t perfectby any agency , but as a general rule its trust on client good will incentivizes beneficial doings .
While we ’re on the subject of incentive , let ’s talk about products . Apple follow late to the AI party , and is extremely peachy to catch up ; this motivates the company to get as many client using Apple Intelligence as possible , as soon as potential . Andthismeans that the cheapest and therefore full-grown - selling products need to support Apple Intelligence .
The 4th - gen iPhone SE and 11th - gen iPad are both wait to establish in March or April and thanks to Apple Intelligence , they are set to be well more powerful than we would otherwise expect . Thenew iPhone SEwill belike feature an A17 Pro processor ( a nice jump from the A15 on the previous model ) and 8 GB of RAM ( up from 4 GB ) for the round-eyed reason that anything less would not be enough to support Apple Intelligence . The11th - gen iPad , meanwhile , will enjoy an even with child stride up from the A14 to the A17 Pro , which is far more muscle than Apple ’s entry - spirit level tablet would get in a world without Apple Intelligence .
The Mac has benefitted from Apple Intelligence as well . Predictive Code Completion in Xcode 16 , part of the Apple Intelligence entourage , requires 16 GB of RAM , which left out many Apple silicon Macs when it launched with macOS Sequoia 15 . later on , several Macs got a excrescence to 16 GB in the declination , including the M2 and M3 MacBook Airs , entranceway - horizontal surface MacBook Pro , and M4 Mac mini . We ’ve been complaining about 8 GB of RAM for twelvemonth , and thanks to Apple intelligence , we finally bugger off it .
Under normal destiny , Apple like to improve its products as slow as possible ; its philosophy is that each gadget should be exactly as much of an improvement on the premature model as is necessary to carry customers to upgrade , and not one gigabyte more . Budget iPad and even Mac buyers in 2025 are improbable to regard either the processor or RAM as dealbreakers , so Apple ’s inherent aptitude would course be to offer the bare minimum . But becauseAppleneeds those things to make it onto the specs sheet , it ’s suddenly hardheaded and price - effective to let in them . comic how that works out .
Of course , Apple Intelligence is n’t just here to force Apple to better the spec lines of its budget mobile devices . It ’s here to createwildly inaccuratenotification summaries andput illustrator out of oeuvre . It ’s here to digress Apple software locomotive engineer for several yr when they could be working on something worthwhile – likefixing Siri , for example . Oh but David , I hear you shout , Siriisbeing fixed as part of the Apple Intelligence labor . To which I do , possibly ( although I have n’t noticed much improvement so far ) , but Siri is at its worst on the HomePod , and the HomePod can not run Apple Intelligence .
I theorize we can seem ahead to the HomePod miraculously leaping up to Apple Intelligence - ready eyeglasses in the cheeseparing futurity . But that is n’t much consolation to me .
Foundry
receive to our hebdomadal Apple Breakfast chromatography column , which includes all the Apple news you pretermit last workweek in a handy bite - sized roundup . We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes outstanding with a Monday morning cup of coffee tree or tea , but it ’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner party hours too .
Apple’sstring of failuresshows just how badly thingsneed to exchange .
Go home Mark Zuckerberg , you’redrunk .
Apple’sstuffed 2025 passing calendaris missingone very important product .
TheiPhone 17will be asmall step backward – again .
Apple’sCalculator appwill getone of its undecomposed featuresback in iOS 18.3 .
Podcast of the week
If you cogitate 2024 was a moderately good yr for Apple products,2025 looks to be even big . On the belated installment of the Macworld Podcast , we ’re talking about Apple ’s load release schedule for the year . If you ’re pondering some major Apple purchase this year , you ’ll want to listen in !
you may catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast onSpotify , Soundcloud , thePodcasts app , orour own situation .
Reviews corner
The rumor mill
Apple’sfall launchesare influence up to be alittle chic than usual .
Apple is looking tosnatch back the limelightwith ahuge class for the iPhone .
iPhone SE 4 dummy modelrevealskey featuresof Apple ’s next budget sound .
TheM4 MacBook Airis adjust to sound off off a‘loaded ’ 2025 for the Mac .
Apple Intelligencebrings ahuge spec bumpfor the basic iPad .
Software updates, bugs, and problems
hacker have devised asimple text scamto ring road Apple’siPhone protections .
New Mac malwarecanbypass Apple ’s XProtectsecurity image scanner .
Appletweaks AI notification summariesiniOS 18.3following yell .
investigator find avulnerabilityin theiPhone USB - C restrainer .
Malus pumila releases firstMagSafe Charger firmwareinnearly two age .
