Apple Could Bring Major Revamp to Native Apps in iOS 18, But AI Will Take Centre Stage: Report

Apple, reportedly, has big plans for the iPhone this year. While a significant portion of it revolves around artificial intelligence (AI), the tech giant is also planning to change some native apps in iOS. As per a report, the Cupertino-based tech giant plans to revamp at least four of its apps including design changes and new feature inclusion. It is said that Apple is also looking to bring interface-level changes to iOS 18, especially to the Home Screen. Notably, the company is also rumoured to add a Calculator app to the iPadOS.

According to a report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman via his Power On newsletter, Apple is looking to make major upgrades to iOS 18 ahead of its preview at the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) on June 10. AI remains one of the major plans for the company to boost iPhone sales.

Despite multiple published papers by Apple researchers, it is being said that the company does not intend to introduce its own chatbot this year. Instead, it has again entered discussions with OpenAI, likely to incorporate its GPT models for some of the AI features.

Besides OpenAI, the iPhone maker is also said to be in talks with Google for Gemini AI as well as Baidu for Ernie AI (China only). While the features Apple is planning to build are not known, Gurman suggests the company wants to integrate AI into its existing apps and offer features such as text generator, article summarising in Safari, and missed notification recap. As per the report, these features could be part of Apple's Ajax AI model, however, the tech giant may also leverage OpenAI, Google, and Baidu's AI models.

While AI features will innovate the offerings of iOS 18, the company is also reported to revamp four of its native apps — Mail, Notes, Photos, and Fitness. The details of what Apple might change is not known, however a design change and new features are expected. Further, the iPhone maker may also include a new capability that will allow users to pin an app anywhere on the Home Screen, not being restricted to the grids that currently exist.

It is to be noted that the features and changes to the iOS 18 are not confirmed by any official sources, and Apple's vision for the next generation of its operating system for the iPhone will only be revealed at WWDC 2024.