There is nothing quite like a buzzword and unless you’ve been hiding under a rock the past couple of years, you will probably have heard the latest one – AI (artificial intelligence). It’s quite amusing then that despite Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) very much being an AI affair, I only heard the phrase itself twice during the two-hour presentation in June. A little different to Google I/O where AI was mentioned 121 times (I didn’t count, Google did).
Alongside the announcements of the new software coming to iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and AirPods, Apple announced Apple Intelligence. Yes, the irony of the fact the acronym would be AI is not lost on me. Apple might be one of the last to the AI party, but it’s brought one of the best gifts – relatability for the everyday user.
Apple Intelligence is of course all about artificial intelligence or, “personal intelligence” as Craig Federighi, Apple’s Vice President of Software Engineering, explained before announcing it on stage. But rather than throw too many technical terms out there – large language models, diffusion models, you get my drift – Apple detailed how Apple Intelligence would enhance your experience on iPhone, iPad and Mac.
What is Apple Intelligence?
Apple Intelligence will be baked into the system of compatible Apple devices, and it’s now possible to start using it following the release of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1 on 28 October. There’s no extra app to download or anything, instead it’s a case of many of the Apple apps you might already use becoming supercharged, smarter and more intelligent.
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Apple Intelligence will transform what users can do with our products — and what our products can do for our users. Our unique approach combines generative AI with a user’s personal context to deliver truly helpful intelligence.
Tim Cook, Apple CEO
In some cases, this will happen without you even realising and that to me should be the point of artificial intelligence. It shouldn’t be about the large language models behind the scenes, but instead about streamlining and simplifying everyday tasks, and how that will in turn, make our lives better or easier.
A number of features are and will be available through Apple Intelligence, and these will run systemwide, across various Apple apps, from Messages and Mail to Siri and Photos, drawing from personal context to simplify and accelerate those everyday tasks. It will extend to third party apps too, though for now, most of the examples of how Apple Intelligence enhances your iPhone, Mac or iPad experience come in the form of Apple’s own apps.
How Apple Intelligence enhances iPhone, Mac and iPad
The beauty about artificial intelligence is that it comes in many forms. What I might find useful in my day-to-day will differ from what you find useful and helpful. Apple announced a range of features under the Apple Intelligence umbrella and there are some that will likely arrive to widespread excitement, while others are perhaps a little more niche.
I’ve broken down some of the various ways Apple Intelligence is being integrated into Apple devices below, so you can decide yourself which ones fill your boots with joy and which you think could have remained in their intelligence cloud rather than transcend onto your iPhone, iPad or Mac.
Siri
Siri has had an Apple Intelligence overhaul – and a little make over too. It now glows on the edge of your iPhone or iPad, rather than the symbol appearing at the bottom of the screen. You can also type to ask Siri something by double tapping the bottom of your iPhone screen and you can switch between voice and typing, depending on your preference. Previously you could only use your voice, which let’s be honest, isn’t the best look in public.
IMAGE CREDIT: APPLE / THE DISCONNEKT
The smart assistant – which is technically more of a device assistant with Apple Intelligence – now maintains conversational context too so you can ask follow up questions, and it will also be able to answer how you do something on iPhone, iPad and Mac too, giving you step by step instructions at the top of your devices.
Siri will also be getting on-screen awareness in later software builds. What that means is if a friend was to send you a message with a new address, for example, a suggestion will appear to add that address directly to their contact without you having to do anything other than accept.
It will be able to keep track of casual conversation too so if you have a brief message conversation with a friend about lunch plans but you don’t put in your calendar, you will be able to ask Siri and it will be able to pull out that conversation to save you having to sift through Messages or your emails in Mail individually.
Photos
There are a couple of features in Photos with Apple Intelligence but the one all iPhone users will likely be thrilled about is the ability to remove things in the background of images that are ruining your shot. It’s aptly-named Clean Up and it sits alongside Crop, Adjust and Filters in the Edit section of the Photos app. It’s similar to what Google has offered with Magic Eraser for several years so it’s been a long time coming for iPhone.
IMAGE CREDIT: APPLE / THE DISCONNEKT
You’ll also be able to search Photos using natural language in order to pull up specific shots. You could ask something like “show me all the images of [insert person’s name here] in their pink top in New York from the other day” and Apple Intelligence will pull all those images from your Photo Library.
Memory Movies are also easier to create too and actually this is one of the ones I’m excited about as it will allow you to describe a memory and Apple Intelligence will pick out the best photos and videos based on your description, craft a storyline with chapters based on themes identified from the photos, and arrange them into a movie.
For Mail, there are several new features that use Apple Intelligence, including Priority Messages. This is a new section at the top of your inbox with what Apple Intelligence deems as your most important emails, like a same-day dinner invite or boarding pass. It launched with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1 so if you’re running the latest software and you’ve set your device to US English, you’ll get access to this.
There’s also something called Smart Reply. This sees Apple Intelligence analyse an email and construct a reply for you. For example, if you got an email for an event, it will be able to analyse what other questions you’ve been asked, like dietary requirements and suggest your reply.
IMAGE CREDIT: APPLE / THE DISCONNEKT
Perhaps more exciting is that Mail will also be able to summarise the emails in your inbox in place of giving you the first couple of lines of the email so you can look down your list of emails and quickly see what ones are most important based on the summary. You’ll also be able to open an email and tap a “Summarise” to get the TL;DR (too long, didn’t read) summary.
Mail also makes use of Apple Intelligence Writing Tools, which will in fact be available across any Apple apps with a blinking cursor so not exclusive to Mail – these include Notes, Pages and Keynote. The Writing Tools include Proofread, which will check for grammar and sentence structure, while Rewrite allows you to press a button to rewrite something you’ve written. You could change an email to be more “friendly” or “professional” or “concise”, or send a party invite as a poem for example.
Messages
There are plenty of features in Apple’s Messages that use Apple Intelligence too, though I suspect the biggest news will be Genmoji. Yes really, that’s a thing. It will allow you to create a personalised emoji by typing in what you want, though it’s not here yet. When it arrives however, I could say “a ginger girl that loves writing about tech” and a couple of options of my personalised emoji will appear, allowing me to select one and send in a Message or add it as a Tapback reply to a message someone has sent me.
IMAGE CREDIT: APPLE / THE DISCONNEKT
Something called Image Playground is also built into Messages, allowing you to create images by choosing from three styles – Animation, Illustration, or Sketch. The images are created on-device and you can choose from a range of categories like themes, costumes, accessories, and places, type in a description to define an image, or choose someone from your personal photo library to include in the image. There is also a separate app for Image Playground so you can play around with it, but this isn’t here just yet and will arrive with iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2.
Other features
Some of the other features that come with Apple Intelligence include the ability to record and transcribe audio in notes – something Google offers on its Pixel devices, and with iOS 18.1 and iPadOS 18.1, you can also record a call and get a live transcription of the call. If you do this, the person at the other end will be notified the call is being recorded.
IMAGE CREDIT: APPLE / THE DISCONNEKT
Notifications will be prioritised in terms of what is important too in a feature called Priority Notifications. It will see what Apple Intelligence deems as your most important notifications appear at the top of Smart Stacks on your Lock Screen, like a delivery on its way, or a meeting change. There’s also a new Focus mode called ‘Reduce Interruptions’ that will use Apple Intelligence to analyse the importance of certain notifications and filter out ones less pertinent in order to keep distractions to a minimum should you want that.
What about ChatGPT?
This is where things get a little confusing. Apple has announced a partnership with ChatGPT and Craig Federighi also mentioned in a conversation with media at WWDC24 that it would be working with Google’s Gemini in the future too. Federighi said Apple Intelligence was built on Apple models however, with ChatGPT an added extra that you can tap into should you wish to. You could ask for a recipe for example, and you can do this without having to jump into the ChatGPT app or create an account.
The idea is that Siri will be able to lean on ChatGPT when it deems that to be helpful, but you will be asked before questions are sent to ChatGPT, along with any documents or photos, and Siri will then present the answer directly. Interestingly, during Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit, there was a lot of talk about on-device AI, with a streamed message from ChatGPT’s CEO, Sam Altman. Though it wasn’t explicitly said, it sounded as though ChatGPT may appear on-device for some Android phones at some point, without requiring cloud access so it will be interesting to see how this element of Apple Intelligence expands in the fitre .
What devices will Apple Intelligence be compatible with?
Apple Intelligence requires devices to be running Apple’s A17 Pro chipset, or Apple Silicon M series chips.
It means for iPhone, you will need the iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max, or any of the iPhone 16 or iPhone 16 Pro models. For iPad, you will need an iPad running an M1 chip or later, which includes the iPad Air (M1), iPad Air (M2), iPad Pro (M2), iPad Pro (M4) and iPad mini (A17 Pro), as well as the iPad Air (5th generation) and iPad Pro (6th generation).
Apple Intelligence is not compatible with the iPad mini (6th generation) or the iPad (10th generation). For Mac, you will again need a model running the M1 or later, which is all Mac models released since 2020. That includes the latest iMac, the MacBook Pro (M3), the MacBook Air (M3) and the MacBook Air (M2).
When will Apple Intelligence be available?
Apple released the final software builds of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1 on 28 October, 2024. This gives users of compatible iPhones, iPads and Macs access to some of the early Apple Intelligence features, but you will need your device to be running US English to access.
Apple Intelligence will be available for localised English in the UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa from December 2024. Apple released the developer beta of iOS 18.2 which brings more Apple Intelligence features, though currently it is not known when the public beta of that will appear, nor the final build.
For those in the EU, you’ll be able to access Apple Intelligence on Mac in US English with macOS Sequoia 15.1. You’ll need to wait until April 2025 for access on iPhone or iPad however. An Apple spokesperson has said: “We are thrilled that iPhone and iPad customers in the EU will have access to many of the core features of Apple Intelligence. Features like Writing Tools, Genmoji, a re-designed Siri with richer language understanding, ChatGPT integration, and many more capabilities will help users do even more with their devices.
“Since announcing Apple Intelligence, we have been working to find a path to deliver as many features as we can in the EU in a way that complies with the DMA while maintaining user privacy and security, and to determine what additional product engineering would be required to do so. We look forward to bringing Apple Intelligence features to users in the EU in future software updates.”
How to get Apple Intelligence in the UK
To get Apple Intelligence if you’re in the UK, follow these steps:
- Upgrade your iPhone or iPad to iOS 18.1 or iPadOS 18.1.
- Open Settings > General > Language and Region > Add Language > Choose English (United States).
- Open Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri > Language > English (United States) if not already selected.
- Open Settings > Apple Intelligence > Join Waitlist. Wait around 10 to 15 minutes.
- Make sure your iPhone or iPad is connected to Wi-Fi. The Apple Intelligence download will begin when your iPhone or iPad is on Wi-Fi.
- Once downloaded, you’ll get a notification. Tap on the notification and then “Turn on Apple Intelligence”.
Update: This Apple Intelligence feature was first published on 11 June, 2024. It was updated on 28 October, 2024 to reflect the availability of Apple Intelligence through iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1.
