Part of my role in leading our community efforts is to provide insights into the potential impact that new technology will have on our general aviation community. So, I’ve started to summarize the big Apple events – and last month’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) was a big one.
It was big because Apple finally shared its plans for artificial intelligence. Plus, it was pretty cool seeing ForeFlight was featured in the opening keynote video – yep, those are iPads running ForeFlight in that Hollywood-style avionics panel.
WWDC gives developers, like ForeFlight, visibility into Apple’s product roadmap and largely focuses on the tools we need to use to make the most of Apple’s tech. There’s a variety of sessions for each of their technology areas and even a litany of developer awards. This annual event helps inform and educate developers of all kinds of apps on what’s coming, how to take advantage of their new technology, and even gain some inspiration from other app developers.
Key Announcements
Before I dive into detail on the artificial intelligence announcements, a few other interesting things came out of the conference worth highlighting for aviators:
Send messages via satellite
You can already send SOS messages over satellite if you’re out of cell or wifi coverage and you have an iPhone 14 or later. With the next release, you’ll be able to use iMessage (and all its cool features) over satellite, giving pilots and their partners, friends, and family some additional peace of mind. If you often fly in places without cellular coverage or are making that epic cross country trip, you likely won’t need to purchase a separate device for texting.
Preview of the next Apple Watch OS
I’ve always seen the Apple Watch as the most useful extension of Apple hardware for pilots. There are plenty of pilot watches out there, but nothing beats the utility of ForeFlight on your wrist. Apple’s next version of the watchOS focuses on health enhancements , which might not have a direct impact on your ForeFlight experience, but I think it adds great tools to help us stay healthy and fit – a huge part of keeping us all flying safely.
A calculator (finally) on the iPad
So, while none of us are likely to pull out the calculator in flight, Apple finally bringing the calculator to iPad might seem a non-event. That is until you see how they incorporated math notes into the new calculator app — it opens up some pretty interesting possibilities. As a regular user of scratch pads in ForeFlight, this could become something really interesting.
Improved Texts With Android Users
I’ve talked before about why ForeFlight exclusively leverages the Apple ecosystem, but I do appreciate small steps like Apple’s announcement to support Rich Communication Services (RCS) that make it easier to connect with Android users. RCS will overhaul how iPhones communicate with Android phones, bringing things like higher resolution photos and videos, audio messages, and improved group chats.
VisionOS 2
If you haven’t had a chance to try the Vision Pro, I’d encourage you to pop into an Apple Store and experience it firsthand. The most important update to the next version of the software brings a larger, ultra-wide Mac Virtual Display that’s equivalent to having two 4K monitors side-by-side. If you’ve never planned a flight in the Vision Pro, you are missing out!
Artificial – I mean Apple – Intelligence
As expected, Apple’s big announcement was about artificial intelligence, which they have coined Apple Intelligence. Built into the next version of iOS, these features will make it easier for users to take advantage of both Apple’s new tools and some that are gaining huge popularity in the market. (If you want more background on artificial intelligence, our CTO Henrik Hansen wrote a great post on the subject.)
Most of these new features are capabilities sprinkled across Apple’s native apps, designed “to deliver truly helpful intelligence.” Many will help users enhance their writing and communicate more effectively, while some will simply make Apple devices more useful.
Here are some of my highlights. While they may not mean much to our users in the short term, I think they offer a good preview of the possibilities to come.
Notifications
Apple demonstrated a new approach to notifications, using AI to make them smarter and more relevant to users. For example, a long string of notifications (like for a group text) can be condensed into a meaningful summary. There’s also a new setting called Reduce Interruptions that only highlights notifications that might need immediate attention based on the content of the message, rather than a preset filter.
Photo Search
Being able to use natural language to search is huge, especially with photos. Now you can search for things like “Me flying left seat over Oahu” or “Ashley preflighting our Piper Arrow in Sedona.” A similar search experience for videos is also getting an upgrade, allowing you to find specific moments in clips, like“Skip to the part where I mess up my radio call with ATC.”
Siri
Apple is making major enhancements to Siri, which is said to be “more natural, more contextually relevant, and more personal, with the ability to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks.” If Apple can get this right, I think it opens up a whole world of interesting ways to make the devices more powerful and useful, no matter what I’m doing.
On-device vs Off-device
I was most encouraged by Apple’s approach to privacy, giving users complete control over when off-device AI (like ChatGPT) can access their information and how it does so. The general approach is to ask you for permission when you want to use these off-device services and then allow you to do it anonymously. So, for tasks that require the power of the massive large language models, you can do so on your own terms.
As a side note, building these AI capabilities onto devices will eventually allow ForeFlight to take advantage of them without a connection, which has always been a key design consideration for our app.
What does this mean for ForeFlight?
This is an exciting first step for Apple into artificial intelligence and one that will eventually impact how users interact with their devices. This means eventually it will impact ForeFlight as well. We’re working closely with Apple to determine how to best leverage this technology for the benefit of our users.
In the meantime, we’ve started taking our own approach to AI and have an exciting roadmap of features we’re planning to release. I agree with Henrik that the impact of AI in aviation will be significant, but its cadence will be measured. Safety is paramount in aviation, and we’ll continue to be thoughtful and vigilant about our approach to technology in the cockpit.
