iOS 18 is slated to release in this month and with it comes many new features. With the September 9th event announced and new devices on the way, a much anticipated feature we’d like to know more about is Apple Intelligence. I’m going to cover some of the key apps and features that Apple plans to enhance with the addition of Apple Intelligence. Apple Intelligence is planned as a beta for iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad and Mac with M1 and later, with Siri and device language set to U.S. English, as part of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia. These Apple Intelligence features aren’t going to be available with iOS 18 immediately until 18.1 it seems since that is the beta version that is required to test it. It is also thought that they will also incrementally roll out the features. Let’s dive into where you can expect to see it and how you can use it on your device.
How to get into the Apple Intelligence Beta
In order to get Apple Intelligence, you'll first need to enroll in the Apple Developer program. To do so, go to https://developer.apple.com/ and hit the Account button in the top right. Sign into your Apple ID and then accept the Apple Developer Agreement and submit.This does not give you access to the full Developer tools since it’s the free version of the Apple Developer Program, but it will give you access to the iOS betas on your device.
Next you’ll need to update to iOS 18 beta. To do so, on your iOS device, go to Settings > General > Software Update. Next go into the Beta Update and select iOS 18 Developer Beta. Finally go back and tap Download and Install under the new iOS 18.1 Developer Beta option that appears.
Lastly you’ll need to join the waitlist for Apple Intelligence. Go to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri and tap Join the Apple Intelligence Waitlist > Join Waitlist. You’ll not need to wait for a notification to be delivered to your iOS device for when you’ve been accepted.
Writing and Communication Gets an AI Boost
Apple intelligence will enhance your written capabilities with its built in tools. You can use its writing tools to help proofread your text, change the tone of the message to something more friendly or professional, or change it to be more concise. Apple Intelligence is also capable of summarizing blocks of text, giving key points, a table, or a list of items from the text.
Notifications and Mail get an overhaul with Apple Intelligence, summarizing and placing the most important pieces of information to the top of the your notifications stack for quick glanceable information. This makes it quicker and easier for you to be able to see messages that require immediate attention such as invitations to events or deadlines and appointments. Long emails can also be summarized to get the most important information quicker and reduce the reading time of the email.
Take notes verbally while using the Notes or Phone apps so that you can capture audio and then use Apple Intelligence to summarize that information for your. This ability to transcribe conversations will allow you to have the key information quickly and keep records of discussion that you have had with people.
Additional overhaul to the Mail app includes a Smart Reply feature that will help you create responses to the emails that are given. Apple Intelligence can write up a draft email to respond with as well as extract any questions that are relevant and require answers that Smart Reply will give you potential answers to the questions to pick from as well.
Siri Gets a Major Upgrade
Everyone who uses an Apple product knows that Siri has been seriously lacking the luster needed to truly rely on as an Assistant. Interacting with Siri now is a refreshing and much better use of this service from Apple.
Siri feels and sounds more natural in conversation, pausing less often and sounding less robotic in its patterns of speech. There is also a natural flow of conversation between you and Siri, allowing you as well to cut Siri off while in the middle of a response to redirect the conversation or ask another question. Alongside this more conversational Siri, you can now manually type to Siri by double tapping the bottom of your iPhone or iPad screen from anywhere when you don’t want to use speech.
Siri is more capable of directing you to things that you are looking for on your phone including how to perform tasks on the device like finding passwords, scheduling sending future text messages, etc. Siri is even more capable with the ability to comb through your own personal context by being able to find emails for your, a passport when booking flights, finding a file that you’ve saved to your device, and many more enhanced internal search capabilities.
AI-Powered Creativity Tools
Apple Intelligence is capable of taking rough sketches and descriptions of images to create full rendered images. These images can be created in place within other applications such as messages and notes with the Image Playground. With new tools in the photos app, creating curated memory movies, searching and image touch up has been made much easier.
Images can now be generated on devices using existing images and descriptions. This can be done in the Image Playground app which also has integrations directly into other applications. You can now take an image and use the context of current conversations or any description of a new context that you’d like, you can alter that image to match a different style or context for greater personalization.
Image Wand can convert your rough sketches in the Notes application and turn them into rich images with the swirl of your apple pencil or finger (making circles around the sketch. This can even be done on an empty space to use the context surrounding that space to create a handcrafted image to match and fill that space.
The photos app has tools for creating your own memory movie by giving the application a description of the type of photos that you’d like to generate. Apple Intelligence will then find the best photos and videos that match this description and create a new movie for you to view and use. Alongside this memory movie creation, you can also use descriptive search to find photos and videos that match the description that you give to show you more accurate results.
Privacy Remains a Priority
All these enhanced Apple Intelligence features may have you concerned with what happens with your personal data. Apple wants to keep privacy at the forefront, so the way that it searches data on your device is integrated into the core of the device with on-device processing. In the event that you need greater processing power for your Apple Intelligence request, there are Private Cloud Compute used to process the request where your data is never stored and used only for your requests.
What This Means for You
I feel like Apple Intelligence is a safe way of implementing these features on your iOS devices. It doesn’t feel like anything that is groundbreaking in the AI industry, but it does feel like a way to keep the AI accurate in its information and tap into some of what I would consider what AI is quite good at this current stage. This is the summarization of information or improvement of existing information (such as the rewording and tone change features), image generation from existing images or descriptions, as well as enhancing Siri with its on-device searching and abilities to locate local pieces of information a lot faster. This seems to be the focus point of Apple Intelligence at this stage.
