With the announcement of Apple’s focus on AI in iOS 18 at WWDC Monday, there has been a flurry of interesting news items.
From Elon Musk mentioning that Apple devices may be banned at his companies due to the integration of AI, to Apple allowing developers to add functions to the Control Center, and Musk confirming once again that Tesla has no intentions to produce a phone, it was a busy day.
Control Center
Also at WWDC, Apple showed off an updated Control Center – the swipe-down control menu on iOS. As of iOS 18, third-party developers will now be able to create buttons to add to Control Center.
This is a pretty neat feature and could make it even easier to manage your Tesla from Apple devices. You could soon be able to control the climate or begin charging your Tesla without even opening the app.
You can already do some of these things using Siri Shortcuts, but this could be the granular integration needed to control specific items with even more detail, rather than just simple routines.
Tesla typically launches new features on its iOS app first, and Android devices a few days or weeks later. An excellent example of this is Ultra Wideband support, which came to Apple devices first.
Banning Apple Devices
At WWDC, Apple showed off new AI integration in its OS, which allows users to leverage OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Elon Musk mentioned that this is a massive security concern on a post on X, and he said he may ban the presence of Apple’s devices at his companies.
Tesla App Lead Alex Guichet asked on X if this was any different than Gemini integration on Android – which Google has already announced and begun to roll out to customers in select markets. If you’re in Canada or the United States, you can replace your current Google Assistant with Gemini, which provides a similar level of system integration to Apple.
Since Musk’s initial reaction to Apple’s integration of AI and partnership with OpenAI, Musk’s concerns appear to have eased. Numerous users clarified that Apple is building its own AI, and Apple will not hand over information to OpenAI unless users explicitly confirm they want to do so.
Musk Denies Tesla Phone
Elon Musk has confirmed that even with his potential ban on Apple devices, he is not interested in building a Tesla phone. A Tesla phone has previously been mentioned, and Elon Musk had previously shown interest in the idea, but has also shot it down numerous times over the years.
With this final confirmation, it’s pretty clear that we won’t be expecting a Tesla phone anytime in the future. SpaceX has been working on integrating Starlink cell-to-satellite messaging, calling, and data to existing phones, so we could see further integration in a different way one day.
