Apple has announced that its new personal intelligence system, Apple Intelligence, will begin rolling out next month with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. This new system integrates generative models with personal context to deliver personalized, private, and useful intelligence across Apple devices.
Apple Intelligence Key Features
- Writing Tools: These tools allow users to rewrite, proofread, and summarize text across apps like Mail, Notes, and Pages, as well as in third-party apps.
- Photos App: Users can create personalized Memories movies by typing a description and can search for specific photos or moments in videos using natural language. The Clean Up tool can remove distracting objects from photos without affecting the main subject.
- Notes and Phone Apps: Apple Intelligence can record, transcribe, and summarize audio, automatically notifying call participants when recordings are initiated.
- Prioritized Notifications: Summarized notifications, Priority Messages in Mail, and Reduce Interruptions Focus help users focus on critical tasks.
- Siri Enhancements: Siri gains a new design and becomes more flexible with improved language-understanding capabilities. Users can fluidly switch between text and voice and benefit from Siri’s expanded product knowledge.
More Features to Roll Out
In the months following the initial release, Apple will introduce more Apple Intelligence features, including:
- Image Playground: Create images quickly with simple descriptions.
- Image Wand: Transform rough sketches into detailed images.
- Genmoji: Generate custom emoji by typing a description or using a photo of a friend or family member.
- ChatGPT Integration: Siri and other Apple features will integrate with ChatGPT for broader knowledge and document-understanding capabilities.
Privacy and Security
Apple Intelligence is designed with privacy in mind, with many models running entirely on-device. When more processing power is needed, Private Cloud Compute provides additional capacity while maintaining privacy protections. Data used for cloud-based tasks is never stored or shared with Apple. For users accessing ChatGPT through Siri or Writing Tools, privacy measures ensure IP addresses are obscured, and OpenAI does not store requests. ChatGPT can be accessed without an account, and for those who choose to connect their accounts, OpenAI's data-use policies apply.
Availability
Apple Intelligence will be available as a free software update and will be available in U.S. English initially, with localized English versions for Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K. arriving later in the year. Additional languages, including Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish, are expected in 2025. The first features will roll out in beta next month with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. It will be compatible with iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad and Mac devices with M1 chips or later. More features and expanded language support will arrive in 2025.
