During Apple’s recent event, AI was a major talking point, but the advanced Apple Intelligence features won’t be ready for the public release of iOS 18 on September 16 or the new iPhone 16 models launching on September 20.
The initial rollout of Apple’s AI capabilities is set for October, though this will only be available in beta and primarily in the US, with a delay for regions including the EU. These features will be accessible on iPhone 15 Pro and all iPhone 16 models, as well as Macs and iPads with M1 or newer Apple Silicon chips, and will initially support US English only.
Apple Intelligence Features Coming in October:
- Writing Tools:
- Text Rewrite: This tool will enhance your drafts, allowing you to adjust the tone to be more professional, friendly, or concise.
- Proofread: It will correct grammar, improve sentence structure, and suggest better word choices.
- Summarize Text: Aiming to provide a quick overview, this feature will condense your writing into key points or create a bulleted list.
- Smart Reply: Offering contextual suggestions for replies in Mail or other apps, Smart Reply aims to streamline your responses.
- New Siri:
- Visual Update: Siri will appear as a rainbow ring on iPhone, iPad, and CarPlay, and as a movable element on Mac desktops.
- Enhanced Language Model: Siri will become more adept at understanding natural language through Apple’s on-device language model. Complex queries will be processed by Apple’s “Private Cloud Compute,” which does not retain data.
- Type to Siri: You can now type your queries to Siri instead of speaking.
- Photos:
- Clean Up: This feature will let you remove unwanted objects from your photos, similar to Google’s Magic Eraser.
- Search: Using natural language, you can find specific photos by describing their content.
- Memories: You’ll be able to create narrative movies from your photos and videos based on written prompts.
- Transcription:
- Phone Call Recording and Transcription: Record and transcribe phone calls, with a notification to all parties that the call is being recorded.
- Voice Recordings in Notes: Record audio directly in Notes, which will be transcribed into text. Additional writing tools can then summarize the content.
Future Apple Intelligence Features:
Apple plans to introduce these features later in the year or possibly into the following year:
- Visual Intelligence: This feature will allow you to gather information by simply photographing objects. For instance, you could snap a cafe’s exterior to get details like hours and menu, or capture a concert poster to add the event to your calendar. Activation will be through the Camera Control side button on the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro.
- Genmoji: Create custom emojis based on text prompts, which Apple’s image generator will then produce.
- Image Playground: Alongside emoji creation, this feature will eventually let you generate custom images from text descriptions.
- Siri Personal Context: Siri will provide more contextual assistance based on the information displayed on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
- OpenAI Integration: Apple Intelligence’s writing tools will offer ChatGPT as an option for more advanced generative AI capabilities. ChatGPT will also enhance Siri’s ability to provide detailed answers.
- Third-Party App Integration: In the future, Siri will be able to perform in-app tasks, such as editing photos in a third-party app using images from your Photos library.