Apple Intelligence, a decision to make

WWDC this morning was fascinating. Apple has clearly been working on what they call Personal Intelligence. Building a picture of your personal data to power a new Siri so you can ask natural questions like ‘what time is mums flight coming in tomorrow’.

I use Gmail. My mail is in cloud. I use the gmail app and calendar on iOS. As Gmail is a web app, opening up mail in a browser gives you a ‘picture’ of your email. Nothing is downloaded.? Search is in the cloud and I can immediately find what I need. Up until now that has been great and I’ve avoided the clunky Apple model of Mail where everything is downloaded. I don’t want to download mail on every device. My Macs, iPad, phone, watch. Mail everywhere.

But Apple needs that data to hydrate the new Siri so it can parse, tokenise, and build context to create Personal Intelligence.

So we’re confronted by a decision. To keep the existing web based email model where email is atomic and you get the benefits of Googles continuous innovation, or opt into Apples model where messaging and email is downloaded so Apple so they build your personal graph and make Siri, hopefully, magical.

Apple Intelligence is another compelling lock in. Controlling the device gives them such an advantage we’ll probably end up doing less with Google. It’s fascinating.

Chat GPT4 looked like a late addition. I'm sure Apple was working hard on Personal Intelligence - which they can fully control, but could see the rise of GenerativeAI and knew they had to partner. (They would have hated that.) But the first cut of integration looks useful. Watching how this shakes out commercially over the next year will be riveting. Apple are likely going to have to charge an AI service so get to anoint a commercial winner or acquire - if antitrust rules allow them too. Popcorn.

Other key WWDC24 takeaways:

• New Zealand is left off wave 2 of Vision Pro which will be available soon in the UK and Australia. Feeling a bit third world over here. But congratulations to Wellington based Beyond for making the keynote.
• Apple adds Venmo and Cashapp? features to Apple Card. Again its incredible that the competition watchdogs haven’t made Apple open up the Secure Enclave as Apple has an unfair advantage in payment services (why we can’t tap to EFT-POS). Come on EU.
• iPhone mirroring is impressive
• No guest mode on Vision Pro. V2 looks more like a v1.2
• No big moves on iPadOS to match the new hardware

Let me know what you think about WWDC24 and especially if you are going to move your email to Apple Mail.