You'll find Apple's best AI in its camera

When Apple unveiled its new slate of iPhones on Sept. 12, executives gushed over the device's new second-generation "neural processor," a custom chip meant just for AI. But Apple didn't boast about how much the new chip was going to improve Siri--Apple's virtual assistant that got eight seconds of the 2 hour presentation--or boost battery life, as the company often claims its machine learning is used for. The real killer app for AI on the iPhone is photography. The Cupertino-based company has been slowly transitioning its cameras from devices that take a picture, into devices that capture data for AI to make into an image. It's called computational photography, and it isn't unique to Apple--researchers have been thinking about the camera as a way to capture data for AI for years.