Just hours before the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max are officially launched, Apple is about to make it easier to try out Apple Intelligence — at least the features that are currently in beta, like Writing Tools and Summarization. Sorry, folks who are eager to try out Genomji or Image Playground — you’ll have to wait a while longer.
iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 are now rolling out as public betas, meaning you no longer need to be part of an Apple developer account to get these betas and try out Apple Intelligence.
Now, you’ll need a compatible device, like an iPhone with an A17 Pro, A18, or A18 Pro, an iPad with at least an M1 chip, or a Mac with an M1 chip or newer. Considering a lot of people will be getting an iPhone 16 soon, that will greatly increase the number of people who will be able to try this on a mobile phone.
Of course, we're still talking about beta software, which is now open to more people. Slowdowns, bugs, and even glitches are to be expected along the way. You might even experience a decrease in battery life, but that might be worth it if you want to try out the new graphical interface for Siri, writing tools, and the Clean Up feature in Photos, to name a few.
How to get the public beta versions of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1
The first step to getting the iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, or macOS Sequoia 15.1 public betas is to go to Apple’s sign-in page and sign in with your Apple account (formerly Apple ID). From there, you’ll go to the respective Software Updates sections within Settings.
On your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > General > Software Update. Tap Beta Updates, then select iOS 18 Public Beta. On this screen, you'll see your Apple account. You can then check for and download the update to install it once it arrives on your iPhone or iPad.
On a Mac, the process is similar: open Settings > General > Software Update, select Beta Updates, then select macOS Sequoia 15.1 Public Beta. Then check for an update, wait for it to download, and install it.
However, there is an additional step to enable Apple Intelligence and the Siri beta.
How to enable Apple Intelligence beta in public beta releases
Once your iPhone, iPad, or Mac has restarted after installing the respective public betas, you’ll need to head into Settings and sign up to join the Apple Intelligence beta. You might not get it right away, as there’s a waitlist. However, during the developer betas for iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, it only took a few minutes. Considering this is a public beta now, it’ll be interesting to see if there’s a longer wait period.
On your iPhone or iPad, open Settings and select Apple Intelligence & Siri. Then turn on Siri and wait for a notification that your device is ready to join the Apple Intelligence waiting list.
Similarly, on a Mac, you'll open Settings, click on Apple Intelligence & Siri, join the Apple Intelligence waitlist, and wait until it's your turn.
Why the waitlist? Well, your iPhone, iPad, and Mac need to download additional software, which appears to prevent a slowdown of Apple's private cloud servers, which handle Apple Intelligence requests that require more power than your respective device can offer.
Of course, it’s a good sign that public betas for iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 are rolling out now, as Apple has promised they’ll arrive next month, in October 2024. As a reminder, Apple Intelligence is launching in US English first, with localized English expected to expand to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK in December.
More languages will be coming in 2025, including Chinese, English (India), English (Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese, and more.
What Apple Intelligence features are available in the public beta?
As mentioned above, you still won’t find Genmoji, Image Playground, the truly intelligent Siri, or ChatGPT integration. It’s rather a small sampling for now, but as I noted in my iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus reviews, and as TechRadar editor-at-large Lance Ulanoff said in his iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max reviews, some of it is actually really useful.
Writing Tools is the best option, as it’s available anywhere you write text on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac—whether it’s in a text box, Messages, Notes, Mail, or Pages. You can select a block of text and then tap Writing Tools (by right-clicking on the Mac or long-pressing on iPhone and iPad) to see the available options. You can summarize a large block of text or even bullet points, make something sound more professional, and proofread. It’s not designed to handle everything, though, and you might notice some ideas that weren’t originally intended, especially when rewriting.
On the iPhone, when you activate Siri after turning on Apple Intelligence, you won’t see a floating orb at the bottom, but the edges of your screen will be colorful and wiggle a bit, as if Siri is giving your screen a hug. It’s still not the fully app- and screen-aware Siri, but Apple’s virtual assistant is better at understanding the nuances of speech, like whether we stumble over words, and is better equipped to help with tech support queries.
I also suggest turning on the “Always show request” option under Siri Responses in Siri and Apple Intelligence settings. It’s a nice animation and you can see what the assistant is picking up. For times when you don’t want to make your request out loud, you can double-tap the bottom of your iPhone to type to Siri.
You can turn on notification summaries, which will basically write a quick summary of a group of notifications for each app. So if you leave a meeting with 10+ unread emails, it will summarize them in one batch — the same goes for Messages, Slack, or any app. I found this quite useful in my testing on the developer betas.
However, Clean Up is probably the option you're most interested in trying. It's Apple's answer to Google's Magic Eraser, which lets you easily remove something or someone from the background of an image. You'll find it in Photos as a new editing option called “Clean Up.” The first time you launch it, you'll need to download some data in order to use it. Once it's ready, you can select and drag over whatever you want to remove or choose from a pre-selected bright area.
Also new in Photos is the ability to create your own memories and more advanced natural language search. On the iPhone, you can also record phone calls and view a transcript in Notes afterwards: when you activate this option, a message will also be played on the line indicating that the call is being recorded.
These are just a few of the big new features currently available in the Apple Intelligence beta as part of the new iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 public betas. Of course, you might encounter some bugs, and the vast majority of other previously announced features are coming later this year or next year.
