Apple Intelligence: Apple rolls out AI across devices

Apple has finally released iOS 18.1, an update that includes the company’s artificial intelligence (AI), called Apple Intelligence, for the iPhone 16 and iPhone 15 Pro.

The release, first previewed by the company in June, marks Apple’s foray into an AI race that has seen the US tech giants rush into ChatGPT-style technology.

The first features in Apple Intelligence, launched on Monday, come after months of anticipation of the latest operating system update for supported iPhone, iPad and Mac devices.

Tech giants Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple are convinced that generative AI’s powers are the next chapter of computing and have ramped up spending to stay ahead.

The features are largely limited to the latest iPhones and iPads as well as Mac computers.

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How to get it

To get to the new AI feature, users will first need to activate it after updating to iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 or macOS Sequoia 15.1.

After installing the new OS update, users can navigate to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri and join the Apple Intelligence waitlist.

After a waiting period, which has been as short as a few minutes, there will be the ability to turn on Apple Intelligence, along with additional options and settings for the feature.

If you are in South Africa, you will have to change your language from English South Africa to English United States to join the waiting list.

Versions in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Korean and other languages will be released in the coming year.

Overall, the features are similar to tools recently released by Meta, Microsoft and Google.

Top Apple Intelligence features

The top features introduced in this first Apple Intelligence update include:

Writing Tools:

These new tools, which are integrated into apps and can be accessed in the same menu as copy and paste when tapping on text, allow users to rewrite their text or even generate a summary for selected text.

The new tools allow users to refine their language by rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing 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.

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Priorities and summaries

Priority messages deemed urgent or timely will show at the top of email inboxes, and there will be summary and smart reply options for emails. Summaries will also be possible for notifications, showing key details on the Lock Screen.

Siri redesign

Siri not only gets a new look on devices, but the revamp hopefully means the virtual assistant is better able to handle requests and questions. Siri should now more easily follow along while a user is speaking, even maintaining context if the user messes up or stumbles on their words, rephrasing their request.

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.

Photos

In addition to the Photos app redesign introduced in the previous OS update, Photos now features a Clean Up tool where users can remove unwanted objects.

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.

Other updates

A new Focus option, Reduce Interruptions, is available, and the Notes app now features audio and phone call transcriptions

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 Summarize 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.

More features

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.

New Apple Intelligence features will be available in December, with additional capabilities rolling out in the coming months.

Another feature, likely coming later this year, is ChatGPT integration for Siri, which also was mentioned in the Apple Intelligence announcement at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC).

Apple said priority notifications and additional updates to Siri and Writing Tools are also listed as features coming to Apple Intelligence.

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