Apple has finally rolled out the first wave of its Apple Intelligence, aka AI features, for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users with its latest update on Monday. Notably, Apple Intelligence was first announced at WWDC 2024, though the new features weren’t ready in time for the iPhone 16 launch in September.
While many Android smartphone makers, including Google and Samsung, have already introduced AI features to their devices, Apple’s marketing push for Apple Intelligence focuses heavily on user privacy. At the WWDC event in June 2024, Apple stated that many of its new AI features would run entirely on-device, with more complex tasks managed through a Private Cloud Compute powered by Apple silicon. The Cupertino-based tech giant also claimed that user data would never be stored or exposed and that independent experts would be able to inspect the code running on Apple silicon to verify these privacy commitments.
While the iOS 18.1 update is rolling out to a variety of devices starting from the iPhone SE (2nd generation) onwards, the Apple Intelligence features are available only on select devices. Here’s the complete list of all Apple devices that support the new AI features:
iPhone 16 Plus
iPhone 16 Pro
iPhone 16 Pro Max
iPhone 15 Pro Max
The new update introduces a set of system-wide writing tools that allow users to polish their text by rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing it across a range of Apple apps, including Mail, Messages, Pages, and more.
The Mail app gets a much-needed overhaul with iOS 18.1, with Apple Intelligence being used to detect and prioritise time-sensitive emails at the top of the list. Meanwhile, users can also read email summaries without needing to open each message. Additionally, Apple is bringing the Smart Reply feature across the Mail and Messages apps, where it analyzes message context to generate quick AI-powered responses.
Apple’s voice assistant Siri is finally getting an overhaul with the iOS 18.1 update, making it more natural, deeply integrated within the system, and better able to understand complex commands. The first major change to Siri is the addition of glowing lights that wrap around the edge of the screen when the voice assistant is activated. Siri also now has richer language understanding, allowing it to understand users even if they pause while speaking or change sentences mid-way.
Additionally, users can type out commands by enabling “Type to Siri” mode, which can be activated by double-tapping the bottom of the screen.
The Photos app is also receiving a major revamp in iOS 18 to make it easier for users to find their favourite memories across pictures and videos. The app is also getting a natural language search which allows users to find the moment they are looking for by simply describing the situation via prompts like “Maya skateboarding in a tie-dye shirt.”
iOS 18.1 also introduces a much-needed feature that Android users have enjoyed for years: Apple now allows users to remove unwanted objects from photos using the new Clean Up tool. The AI-backed tool can automatically detect unwanted objects or people in an image, while users also have the ability to manually select the part of the image they want to clean up using circle or brush gestures.
iOS 18.1 introduces a new focus mode called ‘Reduce Interruptions’ that uses AI to analyze the notification content on iPhones, allowing only important updates to disturb the user’s focus.
Users can also override the notification settings for specific apps and people, similar to how it worked prior to iOS 18.1. There is also a new toggle called ‘Intelligent Breakthrough and Silencing’ that applies similar AI notification detection to existing focus modes.
iPhone users had to wait a long time before Apple finally announced at WWDC 2024 that it would be bringing the call recording feature to iOS 18. Not only does iOS 18.1 provide the option to record phone calls, but users can now also access a transcript and summary of the recording within the Notes and Phone apps.
