These Apple Intelligence Features Will Arrive With iOS 18.1 Update

Apple Intelligence, the much-awaited integration of artificial intelligence (AI) features into Apple devices, was one of the main highlights of the company’s “It’s Glowtime” event on Monday. These features were first unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024 in June. The company is rolling them to the iPhone 16 series which was launched at the September 9 event, as well as last year’s iPhone 15 Pro models. Features such as Writing Tools, notification summarisation, and the object removal tool will be available in beta once the iOS 18.1 update rolls out next month.

Apple Intelligence Features Announced at iPhone 16 Launch Event

While the Apple Intelligence features have been known since the WWDC 2024 in June, the tech giant announced which features will be rolled out with the iOS 18.1 update in beta. The features will also roll out with iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.

Apple confirmed that the AI features will be available on iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad and Mac with M1 and later, with device and Siri language set to US English. Let us take a look at the features users will soon get to try out.

• Writing Tools: AI-powered Writing Tools will be available across different Apple apps such as Mail, Messages, Notes and more. These tools offer several features such as text summarisation, text generation, text refining, and more. Users can also ask the AI to make a message or an email longer using the AI. Further, users can also rewrite it into different styles by using manual prompts as well.
   
• Notification summarisation: Another interesting feature arriving with iOS 18 update is notification summarisation. This feature uses Apple Intelligence to cut the clutter from a large number of notifications in two ways. First, priority notifications are automatically assessed by the AI and are added at the top of the stack. These notifications will also be summarised so users don’t have to go through the details. Second, the AI will understand the content of the notification and show only those which require immediate attention.
   
• Clean Up in images: The Clean Up feature is essentially an object removal feature that allows users to remove unwanted objects or people from an image. These could be people obstructing the view of a famous monument or an unfitting object placed in the background of a memorable selfie. The AI can remove these automatically, or let the user highlight a particular object or person to remove them and fill in the background.
   
• AI Search in Photos: Apple Intelligence will allow users to search their Photos app and the images stored there with natural language queries. Users can ask about specific images using descriptive prompts.
   
• Email Summary: AI will also be able to summarise long email threads to prioritise the most important features.
   
• Image Playground: It will allow users to generate custom emojis or generate images using Apple Intelligence.
   
• Private Cloud Compute:  Private Cloud Compute run “stateless data processing” where the user’s device sends data to PCC for the sole purpose of fulfilling the user’s inference request. Apple also claimed that the user data remains on the server only till it is returned to the device and “no user data is retained in any form after the response is returned.” 

The first set of features will be available in US English. Localised English languages will be added in December, and support for more languages such as Chinese, Spanish, French, and Japanese will be added next year.

AI Features That Will Be Available With Future Updates

While the abovementioned features will be available by the end of this month, there are other Apple Intelligence features which will be available with future iOS updates. These include the ChatGPT-relates features, the Siri upgrade, as well as Genmoji.

• ChatGPT Integration: ChatGPT, the chatbot by OpenAI, will be integrated within Siri and the systemwide Writing Tools. It will also provide the image and document processing capabilities of various tools within the device. The most important use-case will be given to Siri, which will be able to access the chatbot with the consent of the user, and provide both web-related queries as well as answer to questions that require a deeper expertise.
   
• Smarter Siri: Siri, the virtual assistant for Apple devices, is also getting a major upgrade. Apple has promised a new AI-powered conversational capability that will allow the AI tool to interact with users in natural language. Siri will also be able to handle more complex tasks as well as carry out tasks within various apps. 
   
• Genmoji: Apple Intelligence will also release Genjomi, a visual tool that will turn a rough sketch into a related image. Users can also upload their images and turn them into an artistic interpretation.
   
• Visual Intelligence: Users can tap the Camera Control button to activate AI and find more information about images captured. They can also book a reservation or tickets to a location. It is a visual lookup tool, similar to Google Lens. Further, it will also be integrated with ChatGPT to offer enhanced computer vision processing. Apple says users can upload an image of a mathematical problem and find solutions to it.