Apple Intelligence, the long-awaited integration of artificial intelligence (AI) features into Apple devices, was one of the highlights of the company’s “It’s Glowtime” event on Monday. These features were first unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024 in June. The company is rolling them out to the iPhone 16 series that launched at the Sept. 9 event, as well as last year’s iPhone 15 Pro models. Features like writing tools, notification summary, and object removal tool will be available in beta once the iOS 18.1 update rolls out next month.
Apple's intelligence features announced at iPhone 16 launch event
While Apple Intelligence features have been known since WWDC 2024 in June, the tech giant announced which features will be rolled out with the iOS 18.1 beta update. The features will also be rolled out with iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1.
Apple confirmed that AI features will be available on iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPad, and Mac with M1 and later operating systems, with the device and Siri language set to US English. Let’s take a look at the features users will be able to try out soon.
- Writing tools: AI-powered writing tools will be available in different Apple apps such as Mail, Messages, Notes, and more. These tools offer various features such as text summarization, text generation, text refinement, and more. Users can also ask AI to lengthen a message or email using AI. Additionally, users can also rewrite it in different styles using manual prompts.
- Notice Summary: Another cool feature coming with the iOS 18 update is Notification Summary. This feature uses Apple Intelligence to cut through the clutter of a large number of notifications in two ways. First, the AI automatically evaluates priority notifications and aggregates them at the top of the stack. These notifications will also be summarized so that users don’t have to sift through the details. Second, the AI will understand the content of the notification and show only those that require immediate attention.
- Cleaning in pictures: The Clean Up feature is basically an object removal feature that allows users to remove unwanted objects or people from an image. It could be people obstructing the view of a famous landmark or an inappropriate object placed in the background of a memorable selfie. The AI can either remove them automatically or let the user highlight a particular object or person to remove them and fill in the background.
- AI Search in Photos: Apple Intelligence will allow users to search the Photos app and images stored within it using natural language queries. Users can query specific images using descriptive prompts.
- Email Summary: AI will also be able to summarize long email threads to prioritize the most important features.
- Playground pictures: It will allow users to generate custom emojis or generate images using Apple Intelligence.
- Private Cloud Computing: Private Cloud Compute performs “stateless data processing” in which the user’s device sends data to PCC for the sole purpose of fulfilling the user’s inference request. Apple also stated that user data remains on the server only until it is returned to the device and “no user data is retained in any format after the response is returned.”
The first set of features will be available in US English. English localizations will be added in December, and support for more languages, including Chinese, Spanish, French, and Japanese, will be added next year.
AI features coming in future updates
While the features mentioned above will be available later this month, there are other Apple Intelligence features that will be available with future iOS updates. These include features related to ChatGPT, the Siri update, and Genmoji.
- ChatGPT Integration: OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, will be integrated into Siri and system-wide writing tools. It will also provide the image and document processing capabilities of several on-device tools. The most important use case will be Siri, which will be able to access the chatbot with user consent and provide both web-related queries and answers to questions requiring deeper knowledge.
- Smarter Siri: Siri, the virtual assistant for Apple devices, is also getting a major update. Apple has promised a new AI-powered conversational capability that will allow the AI tool to interact with users in natural language. Siri will also be able to handle more complex tasks, as well as carry out tasks within multiple apps.
- Genmojis: Apple Intelligence will also launch Genjomi, a visual tool that will turn a sketch into a related image. Users will also be able to upload their images and have them turned into an artistic interpretation.
- Visual intelligence: Users can tap the camera control button to activate AI and find out more information about captured images. They can also book a room or tickets to a venue. It's a visual search tool, similar to Google Lens. Additionally, it will also integrate with ChatGPT to offer improved computer vision processing. Apple says users can upload an image of a math problem and find solutions to it.