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Apple Intelligence launches this week. How to get it, and what you can do with it

Updated: 27-10-2024, 04.19 PM

After months of anticipation, Apple’s official foray into the world of artificial intelligence launches this week. That’s when the company will roll out its Apple Intelligence AI platform to eligible devices. Apple isn’t being shy about how profound of an event this will be for the company and its future. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Apple Intelligence would make the experience of using Apple products “profoundly different” and likened Apple’s AI technology to the iPhone’s touch interface and the iPod’s click wheel in terms of innovation and importance.

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That’s a high bar—and possibly a problematic one. That’s because the Apple Intelligence that gets rolled out this week won’t be a finished product but rather a work in progress. All of the Apple Intelligence features the company previewed in June won’t be coming to your iPhone or other devices just yet. So, what features are coming this week? Here’s what you need to know.

When Apple Intelligence launches this week, it will include a swath of new AI features baked into the iPhone’s operating system—iOS 18.1 (Apple Intelligence is also coming to supported iPads and Macs this week). These features can be broken down into four main categories, according to the release notes (published by 9to5Mac). They are:

Writing tools: Apple Intelligence will allow you to use AI to proofread, rewrite, and summarize text nearly everywhere you can type words in iOS—emails, messages, documents, and more. The proofreading function includes Grammarly-like features that allow you to choose better words and fix grammatical mistakes; rewriting abilities let you make your text sound more friendly, concise, or professional; and “summarizing” means that Apple Intelligence can read your text and generate a summary of the most salient points.
Photos: The most visually eye-catching feature of the Apple Intelligence launch will be the ability to quickly erase unwanted objects from photos. For example, you can tap on a street sign to delete it from that beautiful city sunset shot you took. Another cool feature is the ability to find photos and videos simply by describing what is in them, such as “black cat near cauldron.”
Siri: The iPhone’s digital assistant is a big beneficiary of the Apple Intelligence launch. Siri gets a revamped look—the borders of your iPhone’s screen glow when Siri is engaged—along with a more natural voice and the ability to understand requests in the context of previous requests.
Notifications: Perhaps the biggest productivity benefit included in the Apple Intelligence launch is the ability for Apple Intelligence to summarize notifications from multiple apps, showing you the most important information you need to act on.

In addition to the above Apple Intelligence features, others launching this week include the ability to use auto-generated, contextually relevant smart replies so you can quickly respond to emails and text messages with a tap, and the ability to generate a text-based summary of audio recordings, which saves you the time of having to listen to the entire recording.

While many people will find the above features useful, they are, unfortunately, just a handful of the ones Apple promised when the company first previewed Apple Intelligence in June. Most of the headline-prompting, eye-catching features of Apple Intelligence are still months away—with some likely not making an appearance until 2025.

For example, Image Playground, the name Apple gives to Apple Intelligence’s ability to generate images in the style of sketches and illustrations that can be used in messages, presentations, and documents, is nowhere to be seen in Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1. Neither is what is perhaps the most fun feature—Genmoji—which allows users to create custom emojis. Both these features are rumored to not be arriving until iOS 18.2 is released in December, according to Bloomberg.

But other features of Apple Intelligence are even further away. The most powerful features of Apple Intelligence likely won’t arrive until iOS 18.4, which isn’t expected until Spring of 2025, at the earliest. Bloomberg says that’s when Apple Intelligence will finally gain the ability to understand context and allow Siri to control apps and “see” what is currently on users’ iPhone screen to help them complete tasks. These features will let Siri help you edit a photo and then send it to your friend—all you have to do is ask.

Although the launch of Apple Intelligence might feel to some users like an appetizer ahead of the main dish (that won’t arrive until 2025), Tim Cook and Apple believe it is a watershed moment for Apple.

Indeed, whether or not Apple Intelligence ends up being “iPhone moment” or “iPod moment,” iPhones are about to start performing tasks that the devices never could before—provided you have the right iPhone.

To get Apple Intelligence this week, you’ll need to download iOS 18.1 onto any iPhone 16 model or an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max. While other iPhones will be able to install iOS 18.1, only the 15 Pro series and above will be able to run Apple Intelligence features.

To upgrade to iOS 18.1, go to the Settings app on your iPhone, tap General, and then Software Update. Apple hasn’t officially announced a release date for iOS 18.1, but rumors say the company could make the software available for download as soon as Monday, October 28.

This post originally appeared at fastcompany.com
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