Apple has finally rolled out the first wave of its Apple Intelligence, aka AI features, for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users with its latest update on Monday. Notably, Apple Intelligence was first announced at WWDC 2024, though the new features weren’t ready in time for the iPhone 16 launch in September.
The iOS 18.1 update introduces Apple Intelligence, featuring system-wide writing tools, an upgraded Siri that understands complex commands, and a redesigned Photos app. Users can now clean up images and enjoy enhanced organization of memories with new viewing options.
iOS 18.1 supported devices:
While the iOS 18.1 update is rolling out to a variety of devices starting from the iPhone SE (2nd generation) onwards, the Apple Intelligence features are available only on select devices. Here’s the complete list of all Apple devices that support the new AI features:
iPhone 16 Plus
iPhone 16 Pro
iPhone 16 Pro Max
iPhone 15 Pro Max
What's new in iOS 18.1?
The new update introduces a set of system-wide writing tools that allow users to polish their text by rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing it across a range of Apple apps, including Mail, Messages, Pages, and more.
The Mail app gets a much-needed overhaul with iOS 18.1, with Apple Intelligence being used to detect and prioritise time-sensitive emails at the top of the list. Meanwhile, users can also read email summaries without needing to open each message. Additionally, Apple is bringing the Smart Reply feature across the Mail and Messages apps, where it analyzes message context to generate quick AI-powered responses.
Apple’s voice assistant Siri is finally getting an overhaul with the iOS 18.1 update, making it more natural, deeply integrated within the system, and better able to understand complex commands. The first major change to Siri is the addition of glowing lights that wrap around the edge of the screen when the voice assistant is activated. Siri also now has richer language understanding, allowing it to understand users even if they pause while speaking or change sentences mid-way.
Additionally, users can type out commands by enabling “Type to Siri" mode, which can be activated by double-tapping the bottom of the screen.
The Photos app is also receiving a major revamp in iOS 18 to make it easier for users to find their favourite memories across pictures and videos. The app is also getting a natural language search which allows users to find the moment they are looking for by simply describing the situation via prompts like “Maya skateboarding in a tie-dye shirt."
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