Rumors about Apple Intelligence delays may have been greatly exaggerated. Apple’s own brand of generative AI, which is rolling out to iPhones, iPads, and Macs later this year, is arriving today (at least in part) in developer betas for iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.
This is the first early access to Apple’s promised generative features, and a hopeful sign that some parts of Apple Intelligence will arrive with the long-awaited iPhone 16. Apple is now rolling out iOS 18.1 developer betas, iPadOS 18.1 developer betas, and macOS 15.1 developer betas to developers and compatible devices to help them understand Apple’s AI intentions and prepare for Apple Intelligence. The news comes just a day after Bloomberg reported delays that could have meant Apple Intelligence might not have arrived in time for the iPhone 16. Now, it seems all but guaranteed that the next iPhone will have at least some Apple Intelligence.
Apple Intelligence promises to offer features like typing assistance, natural language search, context persistence in Siri, prompt-based Memory Movie Creation, transcript summaries, and more. Not everything will be available in this preview. What's more, especially at this early stage before we get a potential full lineup of iPhone 16 phones with the A17 Pro or higher Apple Silicon, only the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPads and Macs with at least M1 chips can access Apple Intelligence features within the new developer betas. It will also only work for English (US)-language systems.
For those who can run it, this is some of what you'll find.
The first look at Siri's most significant update in a generation will include a look at the new design, a double-tap at the bottom of the screen to access Siri text, and the ability to maintain context across multiple queries.
Developers can try generative writing tools in existing Apple apps, such as email, to rewrite and summarize text.
There will be email digests and smart replies, along with some natural language search capabilities in the Photos app, as well as the ability to create movie memories based on predefined and custom prompts.
There are a lot of things that are not coming with these new developer betas, such as Genmoji creation, image creation, photo cleanup, and ChatGPT integration.
Unlike iOS public betas, developer betas aren’t intended for public consumption or to be installed on the primary device. That said, you’ll soon see screens from this first look at Apple’s intelligence that give you a tantalizing first look at what the new typing toolbox looks like, how the Type to Siri keyboard will appear, and how Siri will respond to your text query. These responses will include information based on Siri’s knowledge of apps and your system.
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Apple Intelligence won’t be turned on by default in iOS 18.1. Developers will need to head into the Settings app, where they’ll find a new “Apple Intelligence & Siri” option. From there, they can select Join Waitlist. After that, they’ll get a notification when it’s enabled. The waitlist appears to be a way for Apple to manage the load that could hit that new private compute cloud — which will handle generative queries too intensive for on-device computing — and all those Apple Silicon servers. Access to Apple Intelligence is expected to arrive a few hours after developers sign up.
This gradual arrival of Apple Intelligence is a critical moment for Apple, especially if it wants to stay (or rather, get into) the generative AI game. Google and Samsung already have a significant lead. We’ve been using generative AI features on Pixel phones for months now, and we’ve been enjoying Samsung’s generative AI since its launch at Unpacked in January, and even more so on the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 that we picked up in Paris at the second Unpacked of the year.
As for when Apple Intelligence will be coming to iOS 18 public betas, Apple hasn't offered any information on that front. As far as we know, Apple Intelligence will be coming sometime this fall, which means it could arrive anytime between September and late December. Hopefully the wait won't be too long and everything will arrive in time for the expected launch of the iPhone 16 in September.
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