Acquisition made last year by Apple could lead to big AI announcement at WWDC
Apple could announce new AI features for the native iOS calendar app at WWDC next month.
The EU recently published a list of acquisitions made by companies in the tech industry. One purchase made by Apple in April 2024 was for a company called Mayday Labs Inc. While the company's website is still active, the Mayday app was sunset on May 1st, 2024. It delivered an AI-powered calendar for iOS, iPad, and the Mac that allowed users to set up their schedule using an all-in-one Calendar, Task Manager, and Scheduling Assistant.
The app learned your scheduling preferences and figured out patterns to help schedule your tasks and events at times that are preferable for you. When working with a team, the Mayday app used AI to suggest where to schedule meetings with team members without asking you to go through their individual schedules. To create a schedule, the only input Mayday needed was the duration and the time frame of an event, and you can be sure that it would be scheduled at the perfect time. It also featured one-click rescheduling and automatic rescheduling.
Apple iPhone users who use the native iOS calendar app might get to see some of these AI features make their way to the calendar app when iOS 19 is released later this year. After all, the Mayday app is no more, and Apple owns the company. We could see Apple introduce any AI improvements it makes to its calendar app during the Keynote on June 9th. The tech giant will preview iOS 19, and surely Apple will use the opportunity to discuss additional AI features coming to the operating system in the latest build of iOS.
AI features from the now sunset Mayday calendar app could end up in the iOS native calendar app in iOS 19. | Image credit-Mayda
Apple traditionally makes small under the radar acquisitions to pick up technology for the iPhone. A good example of this is the 2012 purchase of biometric company AuthenTec for $356 million. Less than a year later, Apple had Touch ID debut on the iPhone 5s.
Last year, when it bought Mayday, it was already April and probably too late to incorporate its AI features into the iOS calendar app in iOS 18. But now that another year has gone by, we should see at least some of Mayday's AI features make it to the Apple calendar app. It's also possible (although not likely) that Apple decides not to use any of Mayday's features on the calendar app. We should know much more as soon as one month from today.
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