5 New Ai-powered Features That Flew Under The Radar At Apple's Launch Event

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• Apple's arena features hidden AI updates crossed its products.
• The institution is going against nan atom of different smartphone makers.
• These subtle features streamline personification acquisition and ease. 

As an AI reporter, I person covered each awesome smartphone motorboat arena successful nan past year. The statement betwixt hardware and package is blurring pinch each release, and caller AI features are arsenic noteworthy institution to company. This week, Apple took a quieter attack to embedding AI successful its products. 

Also: Apple iPhone 17 arena recap: Reactions to iPhone Air, Apple Watches, AirPods Pro 3, more

After a streak of overpromising and underdelivering successful nan AI space, Apple went backmost to basics pinch its caller merchandise drops. The attraction of nan caller smartphones, watches, and AirPods was connected nan caller hardware, including amended specs crossed cameras, artillery life, shape factor, and more.

But, if you were paying adjacent attention, AI was responsible for immoderate of nan newest, astir breathtaking experiences connected nan devices -- moreover though they weren't needfully presented arsenic Apple Intelligence features. 

To thief you drawback up connected what you whitethorn person missed, return a look astatine nan round-up of releases below, ranging from astir evident to least. 

1. Live Translation successful AirPods 

Ironically, nan biggest AI upgrade didn't moreover hap successful nan iPhone but alternatively successful nan caller AirPods Pro 3. Live Translation brings nan real-time translating capabilities Apple announced astatine WWDC backmost successful June successful iOS 26 to AirPods. As nan sanction implies, erstwhile nan characteristic is activated, users tin partake successful free-flowing earthy conversations and perceive nan translator of what nan different personification is saying unrecorded successful their ears. For users who don't person nan AirPods, they tin spot nan unrecorded transcription connected their iPhone screen. 

Also: The iPhone 17 lineup arrived pinch higher value tags – are tariffs to blame?

ZDNET's Jason Hiner demoed nan characteristic unrecorded from Apple Park, and he shared pinch maine that he was impressed, arsenic nan acquisition exceeded his expectations. In general, LLMs person a heavy knowing of connection and really group speak, and arsenic a result, they are peculiarly bully astatine accurately translating speech, not conscionable virtually but besides utilizing further context. As a result, this integration will apt beryllium a genuinely adjuvant usage lawsuit of AI.

2. Center Stage for your selfies 

With nan Center Stage feature, erstwhile you are taking a selfie, if you want a horizontal shot, you don't request to flip your telephone now. While you tin manually person it toggle nan predisposition utilizing AI, nan camera tin automatically widen nan changeable erstwhile it detects a group of group and rotate from scenery to vertical to get everyone successful nan frame. While this characteristic isn't nan flashiest, it is 1 of those convenient features that'll conscionable make your life much convenient connected a regular basis.

3. Hypertension notifications

One of nan biggest announcements from nan arena was nan summation of hypertension notifications to nan Apple Watch Series 11 and Ultra Watch 3. With nan feature, your Apple Watch tin alert users erstwhile it detects signs of chronic precocious humor pressure, besides known arsenic hypertension. While this is by nary intends a standalone AI feature, Apple did stock that it was developed utilizing precocious instrumentality learning, successful summation to training information from aggregate studies. It is neat seeing really Apple leveraged AI to build a characteristic that tin beryllium very adjuvant to people's mundane lives.

4. New Photographic Styles filter 

Apple's iPhone 16 lineup featured a caller type of Photographic Styles, which allowed users to scroll done different "styles" aliases subtle filters that set nan colors and reside successful a photograph earlier taking it. Now, according to Apple, location is simply a caller Bright style successful iOS 26 that tin "brighten tegument tones and use a popular of vibrance crossed nan image." 

Also: Why I'm breaking nan 5-year iPhone upgrade rhythm - and I'm not alone

The institution said that these Photographic Styles are powered by nan Apple Neural Engine, meaning immoderate AI underpins nan technology. 

5. Updated Photonic Engine

The iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max person an updated Photonic engine, aliases nan computational photography down really nan telephone processes your photos. Apple said that "the image pipeline uses much instrumentality learning to sphere earthy detail, trim noise, and importantly amended colour accuracy." Similar to nan Center Stage feature, this is different illustration of really AI tin subtly thief make your mundane telephone acquisition easier. 

Bonus: caller chipsets 

Beyond caller features, Apple unveiled caller chipsets to powerfulness its devices crossed nan board. Although this whitethorn sound little flashy than possibly an upgraded Siri, it lays nan groundwork for much precocious AI features.

Also: Every iPhone that tin beryllium updated to iOS 26 (and erstwhile you tin instal it)

For example, nan caller A19 and A19 Pro chipsets characteristic a 5-core GPU pinch Neural Accelerators built into each core, which should alteration nan devices to tally much powerful generative AI models arsenic seamlessly arsenic possible. Another premier illustration is nan S10 spot successful nan Apple Watch SE 3, which, moreover for nan fund model, enables, for nan first time, on-device processing for Siri.