'Apple Intelligence' at the core of next-gen Apple hardware, services

A new report from Bloomberg makes clear that the company believes its new "Apple Intelligence" technology, after years in development, will be the key tool to enhance its drive to further expand productivity and health initiatives. It will also provide the basis of future hardware beyond the current iPhone, iPad, Mac and accessories hardware.

Over the rest of the 2020s, Apple hopes to offer products in such areas as home robotics, advanced AirPod devices, augmented-reality glasses, smart rings, and more. Smarter and more intuitive enhancements to existing features such as Siri could be joined by AI-based features such as health coaching, leveraging new sensors to provide further health data to existing or new hardware.

Future devices

Following on from the abandoned "Apple Car" research project, Apple is allegedly looking into hardware that builds on the technology of devices such as the Apple Vision Pro. The company is said to be investigating home robotics that could, for example, assist mobility-limited users with common household chores.

Speculation on what form factors such hardware might use vary, but the ability of an iPad-like interactive screen in the main rooms of a home — or one that could transport itself around the house — would prove useful to a wide variety of users. Such a device would leverage the enhancements coming to Siri and other Apple technologies to control smart devices by voice or other input.

The technologies Apple has showcased in its existing and future iterations of the Apple Vision Pro are another area that will benefit from Apple Intelligence enhancements. As has already been widely speculated, existing and future VR-type headsets will bring augmented reality down to sunglasses-type visors that seamlessly integrate information into the users' field of view.

Such future products will rely heavily on voice control, and users should start seeing an enhanced Siri as the key to many future Apple hardware devices. The next few years will bring rapid changes in technology to all device makers, and big investments in software and hardware will be required.

With its expected 2024 WWDC keynote, Apple will be laying out some of its plans for both short-term and long-term Apple AI initiatives that will assist users. This will make for considerable evolution for both device manufacturers and users over the next decade and beyond.