For months, pundits wondered when Apple would finally announce new products and services built atop generative AI. That moment is here: at the keynote for Apple’s latest Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the company’s executives unveiled Apple Intelligence, which integrates generative AI into Siri and other Apple software. This is big news for developers (and for people who’ve begged Apple to make Siri more useful and powerful).
For anyone interested in building apps on iOS, it’s worth reading Apple’s top-level breakdown of how AI will end up in everything from Mail to Notifications to an Image Playground, the lattermost of which will allow users to generate AI images in response to a prompt. But the enhanced Siri will probably end up having the most impact on third-party iOS developers’ workflows: for example, Siri will be able to access items from any app’s menus, along with any displayed text.
The result is that iOS users could ask Siri to perform tasks involving third-party software, such as tweaking an image taken using a photo-filter app, or surfacing data from a reservation app. Whether you’re new to building apps for iOS, or an old hand at the process, this will ultimately mean learning the nuances of an updated SiriKit and other Apple SDKs.
Fortunately, Apple already has a few explainers on its developer site, including a lengthy breakdown of Apple Intelligence integration into apps.
For those totally new to iOS, keep in mind that you’ll have to master the following skills if you want to build apps for Apple’s enormous platform:
For a very long time, Apple developers relied upon Objective-C as the main programming language for iOS. Ten years ago, Apple introduced Swift, intended as a replacement for Objective-C. However, many iOS developers still rely on both languages, especially because there are tons of legacy apps that feature Objective-C code. Apple’s developer site features a ton of iOS documentation, including tutorials and sample code if you’re just learning how everything works.
It’s still very early days for Apple and AI, and we could see a proliferation of AI-related iOS features for developers in the next few years. Stay aware of Apple’s AI announcements; while they will likely make your apps more useful and powerful, AI may also introduce nuances to the development process that you’ll need to handle in as efficient a manner as possible.