Apple Intelligence is coming next month. The company has revealed that its artificial intelligence platform is coming to iPhones, iPads and MacBooks with the iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1 updates in October.
However, it will only work on Apple’s newer and more powerful devices, including the iPhone 15 Pro and upcoming iPhone 16 models, as well as MacBooks and iPads running on M-series chips.
Also, the first batch of Apple Intelligence features will only be available in US English. Support for English in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK will be available in December, while support for other languages including Chinese, French, Japanese and Spanish is coming next year.
One of the first features of Apple Intelligence you’ll be able to use is Writing Tools, which can rewrite, proofread and summarize text for you in Mail, Notes, Pages and even third-party apps. The Memories feature will give you a way to easily create movies in Photos when you type descriptions for images you like.
You’ll also be able to search for specific photos and videos using natural language. And if you want to quickly remove background objects in images without harming the rest of the photo, you can use the Clean Up tool.
There’s also a feature you can use to record, transcribe, and summarize audio in Notes and Phone. For example, if you start recording while you’re on a call, Apple Intelligence will create a summary after it’s finished.
A new Focus feature called “Reduce Interruptions” will show only notifications that need immediate attention, while Priority Messages in Mail will put time-sensitive messages at the top based on the content of those emails.
You’ll also see a summary of the most important information from an email in your inbox and then use Smart Reply, which identifies questions and suggests quick responses, to send a quick message.
Apple says its AI technology will make Siri sound more natural and more integrated into its platform. The voice assistant will apparently be able to understand your queries, even if you stutter or stumble over your words, and it can follow your train of thought, even if you switch between text and voice.
Apple says it’s releasing more AI features over the next few months, including a feature that can generate an image using context when you circle a blank space and another that can create original emojis (or “Zenmoji”) based on a description you type.
A year ago, 66 percent of all iPhones ran on iOS 17, so that’s a two percent jump for iOS 18 this year. The other stat was similar to today’s data: 76 percent of iPhones from the past four years were running on iOS 17 in January 2024.
iPad owners aren’t changing dramatically either. Apple says 53 percent of all iPads are running on iPadOS 18 (the same as iPadOS 17 a year ago). And 63 percent of tablets from the last four years are running on iPadOS 18. That’s up a notch from 61 percent of devices from the last four years running on iPadOS 17 early last year.