13 Apple event predictions: AI, iOS 18 and Severance season 2 at WWDC 2024

Here's what I expect to happen at Apple's WWDC keynote on today at 1pm ET

The iPhone 15 Pro will get the biggest upgrades (Image credit: Kevin Lee / The Shortcut)

Update: New Apple event leaks suggest that iOS 18 will get a new Calculator app and that users will be able to lock apps behind Face ID. So our WWDC 2024 keynote predictions list went from 11 to 13 overnight.

In less than 24 hours, Apple will make headlines with an AI roadmap on its own terms, labeling it “Apple Intelligence.” At its WWDC 2024 keynote, the company will debut an AI-infused iOS 18 beta and completely transform Siri as we know it.

Apple’s overdue Siri revamp and rumored deal with OpenAI (the maker of leading LLM chatbot ChatGPT 4o) is just the tip of the iceberg. The WWDC keynote livestream will last two hours. Here’s what to expect from Apple on June 10 at 1pm ET.

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🍿 1. Severance season 2 trailer: now or September

Season 2 is coming. We’ll see the first trailer at WWDC or the iPhone event.

I haven’t seen this WWDC 2024 prediction elsewhere, so I’m putting it first on my list. We’ll see the long-awaited Severance season 2 trailer this week or at the iPhone 16 launch event. It has a 50% chance of happening during today’s two-hour keynote.

We’ll see the long-awaited Severance season 2 trailer this week or at the iPhone 16 launch event.

“It’ll finally be coming out in the somewhat near future and I can’t wait for everyone to see it,” said lead actor Adam Scott in an interview with The Hollywood Report in May. “Your patience doesn’t have to hold on too much longer.”

I’ve watched season 1 of the suspenseful Apple TV+ show twice (incredibly rare for me), and it has an intriguing plot, twisted characters and a great cliffhanger. Beset by Hollywood writers’ strike delays, Severance has had a lengthy two-and-a-half-year gap since season 1 debuted in 2022.

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🍎 2. Apple Intelligence, aka AI done right

Apple Intelligence will be its better-late-than-hallucinating take on AI

To some, Apple is late to the AI race. But it can easily avoid the product and PR disasters of companies that went first. See my Rabbit R1 review on how not to launch an AI product or Adam’s coverage of Google Gemini failing basic history and its AI Overviews literally telling you to eat rocks and glue. ChatGPT and Microsoft CoPilot are no strangers to dangerous AI hallucinations either.

Apple can easily avoid the product and PR disasters of companies that went first

Like so many times before, Apple is poised to course-correct new tech, even though it’s launching later than its AI rivals.

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🧠 3. An AI-infused iOS 18

Siri will be the star of the iOS 18 AI update

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman (who I subscribe to and recommend), Apple will start by labeling its AI as “Apple Intelligence” and include the following features:

• Siri 2.0 or Siri+ that’s smarter and acts more like ChatGPT

• Siri will work with apps with permission to delete and edit via voice

• AI Photo editing with powers similar to Google’s Magic Eraser

• Summaries of notifications texts, emails, articles and web pages

• Reply suggestions for emails and text messages

• Mail app that auto-categorizes incoming messages

• AI-created emoji for custom, message-context-aware stickers

• Voice memos with transcription (like Live Voicemail currently)

Many of these AI features will come to iPadOS and macOS, of course. At first, using natural language to control apps will be limited to first-party Apple apps, from staples that have been there since the first iPhone, like Mail, Photos, and Camera, to newer additions over the years like Freeform, Reminders, and Files. In time, maybe beyond the iOS 18 beta update, Siri’s superpowers could come to other apps.

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🛂 4. On-device Apple Intelligence

There’s a reason Apple will keep citing privacy. Its rivals rely on the cloud to process AI more than they can claim on-device AI

My Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review gave high marks to Samsung’s leading AI features (it’s one of two AI gadgets I recommend; the other Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses). But Apple’s similar integrations (AI summaries, photo editing and voice control over apps) will contrast by largely happening on-device.

This is par for the course for Apple, which has touted privacy and security more than its tech rivals, though some information will have to harness the cloud (expect Apple to tell us how it does it more securely with a detailed video).

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🏠 5. Home, Settings & Control Center tweaks

This may be the most minor iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 upgrade I’m excited about:

• Apps on your homescreen don’t have to conform to the grid

• App icon colors will be customizable

• Control Center shortcuts can be rearranged

• Sprawling Settings menu will be revamped for better organization

The changes to the homescreen mean I could have social media apps on one pane at the top, skip a row, and have transit apps at the bottom. This is akin to sorting macOS home screen app icons by “None” instead of “Snap to grid” and I’m all for it.

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💬 6. Messages: Emoji Tapbacks & Scheduling

I use Tapbacks in Apple Messages more than a 40-year-old man should. But there are only six icons in gray (heart, thumbs up, thumbs down, ha-ha, exclamation point and the dread question mark [you only get this when you’ve said something very dumb or incoherent]). Gurman suggests that it’ll be possible to use any emoji as a Tapback. This sounds a bit different than having to resort to the separate emoji Stickers drawer where search, annoyingly, doesn’t exist (Apple, please fix this. Thanks!).

• Use any emoji as a Tapback (beyond the current five)

• Schedule messages to be sent at a later time

• RCS support to benefit sharing with Android users (no green bubbles for Android users aren’t going away)

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🧮 7. Calculator app for iPad and macOS – finally

The official Apple Calculator app, of all things, is getting a revamp on iOS – and it’s finally coming to iPadOS and macOS, according to Mac Rumors. There’s going to be a sidebar that allows you to access recent calculations.

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🔒 8. iOS 18 ‘Passwords’ app

Your iCloud Keychain will be upgraded to standalone app status with iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS 15, according to Gurman.

• Passwords will become its own app

This is good news for everyone who taps “Forgot Password” on the daily. It’s only potentially bad news for services like 1Password and LastPass.

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📱 9. A reason to upgrade to iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16

My iPhone 15 Pro Max review is going to need an overhaul by the end of today. That’s because the AI functions may be limited to newer iPhones, like the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max as well as M1-powered iPad Pros and Macs. Apple is likely to tell you that the chipset in your device matters for processing and security reasons.

If true, that’s good news for everyone who upgraded to the A17 Pro-powered iPhone 15 Pro or plans to buy the iPhone 16 in September. One has to hope that the power of Apple Intelligence is so vast that it requires such a robust chipset, and it’s not just a limitation to upsell you on the latest hardware. 🤞

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🏴‍☠️ 10. Apple Intelligence without theft

Perplexity AI is stealing from journalists. When your product is based on someone else’s work with zero new commentary, that’s theft.

Perpexlity AI is accused of ripping off the original work of investigative journalists with little to no credit. A month ago, I asked the Rabbit R1 what it thought of the Rabbit R1 and it read whole chunks of my review back to me using its Perpexlity AI-backed LLM. Note: Perpexlity AI Pro costs $20/mo for information like this. I get $0 of that.

Unlike Perpexlity, I hope Apple’s AI efforts will avoid stealing from publications, as it has done with its Apple News product

What matters more than a cut of that $20/mo is that I have no chance to upsell a paid subscription to The Shortcut or, at the bare minimum, ask free subscribers to sign up (which still helps). So AI is stealing the work of journalists and charging for it. That’s worse than the original Napster, which was distributing songs for free.

Unlike Perpexlity, I hope Apple’s AI efforts will avoid outright stealing from large and small publications, as it has done with its Apple News product. I say this because the partnership program behind Apple News+ has reportedly paid millions to publishers, according to Semafor. Meanwhile, Perpexlity and Google are being dragged for lifting original work and blaming “rough edges” (per Bloomberg) with no desire to change.

While quick answers via AI are great, robbing journalists of the ability to monetize will ultimately lead to more layoffs. So where will AI get updated information in the future? Surely not Reddit unless you like eating rocks 🪨 or tasting glue🧴. Apple may avoid eating its own “I” (intelligence) sources when launching its AI product.

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👁️ 11. Apps can be locked behind FaceID

You may or may not know this: FaceID can be used for more than just unlocking your iPhone. It can also act as a second layer of protection to access individual notes in the Apple Notes app and view Recently Deleted and Hidden albums in the Photos app.

Now, reporting from Mac Rumors suggests that iOS 18 will expand that second layer of FaceID protection to more apps, including Mail, Messages, Phone, Photos, Safari, Settings and more. Of course, if someone knows your iPhone passcode, that can be used instead of FaceID.

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🆚 12. Countering Microsoft CoPilot+ PC claims

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon stands before Snapdragon X-powered CoPilot+ PCs. There are 22 of these AI computers that sue this Apple-rivaling chipset.

I just got back from Taiwan where 15 of The Shortcut Computex 2024 Awards were handed out – lots of AI winners (the MSI MEG 321URX AI monitor, Intel Lunar Lake and AMD Zen 5) and PC gaming handheld and accessory winners (Zotac Zone, Asus ROG Ally X, Scuf Nomad), as well as some AI-gaming crossovers (Nvidia Project G-Assist and Gigabyte AI Arcade).

But our “Best in Show” was Qualcomm’s AI Snapdragon X chipset that’s powering the first 22 Microsoft CoPilot PCs. This has enabled Microsoft to take digs at Apple.

WWDC 2024 will provide Tim Cook & Co. the first opportunity to respond, and they’ll do so – without ever naming Microsoft – every time they hammer home Apple Intelligence’s “on-device” and “privacy” perks. Microsoft’s standout AI feature “Recall,” which takes snapshots of your PC usage so you can search later, was so poorly received* by privacy critics that Microsoft just made it an opt-in feature.

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🥽 13. Apple Vision Pro update

The hype around the Apple Vision Pro has subsided, but I’ve been testing updates to the headset via the visionOS 1.2 beta. The Personas look much better (as of visionOS 1.1) and spatial Personas allow multiple digital avatars to share virtual environments. I still use my Apple Vision Pro on an airplane each time I travel.

Easy prediction for WWDC 2024: these “Coming Soon” environments will be added to visionOS 2.0 on the Apple Vision Pro

But there’s a lot more work to be done to broaden the appeal of Vision Pro. We need VisionOS 2.0 to add more demos like Explore Encounter Dinosaurs. And Apple still labels two of its 360-degree environments as “Coming Soon,” so that’s a gimme for the WWDC 2024 keynote. Just don’t expect that rumored Apple Vision Pro 2 headset or a cheaper Apple Vision Air until 2025.

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