Some features of Apple Intelligence are now available in iOS 18.1 for phones set to US English. It’s also available for other devices using PadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1.
If you want Australian English, you’ll get that update in December with iOS 18.2. We are currently testing this beta version as you can see in the video above.
“Apple Intelligence introduces a new era for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, delivering brand-new experiences and tools that will transform what our users can accomplish,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
“Apple Intelligence builds on years of innovation in AI and machine learning to put Apple’s generative models at the core of our devices, giving our users a personal intelligence system that is easy to use — all while protecting their privacy. Apple Intelligence is generative AI in a way that only Apple can deliver, and we’re incredibly excited about its ability to enrich our users’ lives.”
For now users can refine their writing; summarise notifications, mail, and messages; experience a more natural and capable Siri; remove distracting objects from images with Clean Up and more.
Writing Tools
Deeply integrated across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, Writing Tools allow users to refine their language by rewriting, proofreading, and summarising text virtually everywhere they write, including Mail, Messages, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps.
With Rewrite, Apple Intelligence allows users to choose from different versions of what they have written, and adjust the tone — professional, concise, or friendly — to suit the audience and task at hand. Proofread checks grammar, word choice, and sentence structure while also suggesting edits — along with explanations of the edits — that users can review or quickly accept. Users can also select text and have it summarised in the form of a digestible paragraph, bulleted key points, a table, or a list.
Better Siri
Siri becomes more natural, flexible, and deeply integrated into the system experience. It has a brand-new design with an elegant glowing light that wraps around the edge of the screen when active on iPhone, iPad, or CarPlay. On Mac, users can place Siri anywhere on their desktop to access it easily as they work. Users can type to Siri at any time on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and can switch fluidly between text and voice as they use Siri to accelerate everyday tasks. With richer language-understanding capabilities, Siri can follow along when users stumble over their words and maintain context from one request to the next. In addition, with extensive product knowledge, Siri can now answer thousands of questions about the features and settings of Apple products. Users can learn everything from how to take a screen recording to how to easily share a Wi-Fi password.
Smarter Photos App
The Photos app is even more intelligent with many new capabilities. Natural language search gives users the ability to search for just about anything by simply describing what they are looking for, like “Maya skateboarding in a tie-dye shirt.” This works across videos, too, so users can search for something that happened in a specific segment of the video and go right to it. Search also offers smart completion suggestions to help users quickly complete a search.
For those times when an unwanted object or person ends up in the frame of a photo, the Clean Up tool gives users a way to remove distracting elements while staying true to the moment as they intended to capture it.
The Memories feature now gives users the ability to create the movies they want to see by simply typing a description.(1) Using language and image understanding, Apple Intelligence will pick out the best photos and videos based on a user’s description, craft a storyline with chapters based on themes identified from the photos, and arrange them into a movie with its own narrative arc.
Prioritise and Stay Focused
Staying on top of emails has never been easier. Priority Messages, a new section at the top of the inbox in Mail, shows the most urgent emails, like a same-day invitation to lunch or a boarding pass. Across their inbox, users can see summaries without needing to open a message, and for long threads, they can tap or click Summarise to view pertinent details. Additionally, Smart Reply provides suggestions for a quick response and will identify questions in an email to ensure everything is answered.
Apple Intelligence helps users prioritise and stay in the moment with notification summaries that allow users to scan long or stacked notifications with key details right on the Lock Screen, such as when a group chat is particularly active. A new Focus, Reduce Interruptions, surfaces only the notifications that might need immediate attention.
In the Notes and Phone apps, users can now record, transcribe, and summarise audio. When a recording is initiated while on a call in the Phone app, participants are automatically notified, and once the call ends, Apple Intelligence generates a summary to help recall key points.
More Features Soon
New Apple Intelligence features will be available in December, with additional capabilities rolling out in the coming months.
Apple Intelligence will add new ways for users to express themselves visually. Emoji will be taken to an entirely new level with the ability to create original Genmoji by simply typing a description, and can also be personalised using a photo of a friend or family member. Image Playground will allow users to create playful images in moments. Image Wand will make notes more visually engaging by turning rough sketches into delightful images. When a user circles an empty space, Image Wand will create an image using context from the surrounding area.
In December, Writing Tools will get even more powerful with the ability for users to describe a specific change they want to apply to their text, like making a dinner party invite read like a poem, or adding more dynamic action words to a résumé. And users will have the option to access ChatGPT’s broad world knowledge within Writing Tools and Siri, allowing them to benefit from its image-and document-understanding capabilities without needing to jump between tools.
Also coming in December, a new visual intelligence experience will build on Apple Intelligence and help users learn about objects and places instantly, thanks to the new Camera Control on the iPhone 16 line-up. Users will be able to pull up details about a restaurant in front of them and interact with information — for example, translating text from one language to another. Camera Control will also serve as a gateway to third-party tools with specific domain expertise, like when users want to search Google for where they can buy an item, or benefit from ChatGPT’s problem-solving skills. Users are in control of when third-party tools are used and what information is shared.
In the months to come, Priority Notifications will surface what’s most important, and Siri will become even more capable, with the ability to draw on a user’s personal context to deliver intelligence that’s tailored to them. Siri will also gain onscreen awareness, as well as be able to take hundreds of new actions in and across Apple and third-party apps.
Breakthrough Privacy Protections
Designed to protect users’ privacy at every step, Apple Intelligence uses on-device processing, meaning that many of the models that power it run entirely on device. For requests that require more processing power, Private Cloud Compute extends the privacy and security of Apple devices into the cloud to unlock even more intelligence. When using Private Cloud Compute, users’ data is never stored or shared with Apple; it is used only to fulfil their request. In a first for the industry, independent experts can inspect the code that runs on Apple silicon servers to continuously verify this privacy promise — an extraordinary step forward for privacy in AI.
Users can choose whether or not to enable the ChatGPT integration, which is available as part of using Siri, Writing Tools, or visual intelligence with Camera Control. Users can access ChatGPT for free without creating an account, and privacy protections are built in — their IP addresses are obscured and OpenAI won’t store requests. For those who choose to connect their account, OpenAI’s data-use policies apply.
Availability
- The first set of Apple Intelligence features is available now as a free software update with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, and can be accessed in most regions around the world when the device and Siri language are set to U.S. English.
- Apple Intelligence is quickly adding support for more languages. In December, Apple Intelligence will be available for localised English in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K., and in April, a software update will deliver expanded language support, with more coming throughout the year. Chinese, English (India), English (Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese, and other languages will be supported.
- Apple Intelligence is available on iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPad with A17 Pro or M1 and later, and Mac with M1 and later.
- Create a Memory Movie is available on iPhone and iPad, and will be available on Mac in the coming months.
- Camera Control is available on iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max.
