Apple has revealed an array of new features for the iPhone by introducing the world’s most popular generative AI into its ecosystem.

The tech giant has borrowed from third-party apps and redesigned several display options in one of Apple’s biggest overhauls of its operating system.

The biggest feature to be announced is ‘Apple Intelligence’ and the introduction of ChatGPT into Siri.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple Intelligence combines “generative AI with a user’s personal context to deliver truly helpful intelligence”.

“It can access that information in a completely private and secure way to help users do the things that matter most to them,” he said.

“This is AI as only Apple can deliver it, and we can’t wait for users to experience what it can do.”

Apple has been bullish about the use of AI in its products in the past but has embraced it to introduce new writing tools, including in mail, notes, pages and third-party apps.

ChatGPT will be integrated across platforms and into Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant, allowing “users to access its expertise — as well as its image- and document-understanding capabilities — without needing to jump between tools”.

Critics of the move include Elon Musk, an early investor in OpenAI who has launched a competing company after a bitter fallout, who said that the partnership was an “unacceptable security violation”.

Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI,” Musk said on X.

“They’re selling you down the river.”

Borrowing or stealing?

Using ChatGPT will allow Siri to use it to answer questions, instead of other search engines as it has used previously, in one of the biggest deployments of AI technology the tech world has seen.

Several new features in iOS 18 were also seemingly lifted from third-party apps already available, although fully integrated into Apple’s ecosystem.

The AI editing tools have clearly taken inspiration from Grammarly, which is available on the Apple store, while keen runners and hikers will now be able to share their trails and run with other iOS users in what can only be described as Apple’s version of AllTrails.

Venmo, an app not used by Australians thanks to a robust banking system, has also been made obsolete for Apple users, who can now transfer money swiftly between devices linked to bank accounts.

New features

The final major changes announced for iOS were display and customisation options, which has been a weakness for Apple devices.

Although there is nothing game changing, users will be able to see a difference in the way buttons now tacitly interact with display screens.

Apple has also touted “the biggest ever redesign of photos”, greater customisation of lock screens and the introduction of RCS support, which was forced after the European Union took the company to task over anti-competitive behaviour.

RCS support will allow other people who send GIFs and photos to iPhone users similar quality to what is achieved by iMessage.