Apple Intelligence will come to iPhone, iPad, and Mac soon. But there’s a catch

While the biggest highlight from Apple’s Glowtime event on 9 September was undoubtedly the new iPhone 16 series – iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max – the Tim Cook-led company also announced a beta roll out for Apple Intelligence, the company’s personal intelligence system that uses generative AI models.

Apple Intelligence will start rolling out next month with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, with more features launching in the coming months, the company said in a news release.

What is Apple Intelligence?

Apple Intelligence is Apple’s personal artificial intelligence system that draws on a user’s personal context – combined with generative models – to make multiple tasks easier. Users can leverage the system across multiple apps. According to the company, many of the models that power Apple Intelligence run entirely on device.

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The iPhone 16 series, for instance, is built from the ground up for Apple Intelligence and features the faster A18 and A18 Pro chips.

What are some of the Apple Intelligence features?

Apple Intelligence will bring a host of image and text generation features for users.

With Writing Tools, users will be able to fine-tune their words by rewriting, proofreading, and summarising text in multiple apps, including Mail, Notes, Pages, and other third-party apps. Users will also get Mail and notification summaries with the help of Apple Intelligence.

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In the Phone and Notes apps, users will be able to record, transcribe, and summarise audio. “When a recording is initiated while on a call in the Phone app, participants are automatically notified, and once the call ends, Apple Intelligence also generates a summary to help recall key points," Apple explains in its news release.

In Photos, users will be able to utilise the ‘Memories’ feature “to create the movies they want to see by simply typing a description”. In addition, natural language can be used to search for specific photos, and search in videos gets more powerful with the ability to find specific moments in clips, the Apple news release said. A new Clean Up tool will allow users to identify and remove unwanted objects in a photo’s background without altering the main subject.

When will it be available?

According to the release, Apple Intelligence will be available as a free software update. “The first set of Apple Intelligence features will be available in beta next month as part of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, with more features rolling out in the months to come. It will be available on iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad and Mac with M1 and later, with device and Siri language set to US English. Additional languages and platforms are coming over the course of the next year," the release adds.

The company also announced a new version of its AirPods headphones and a new design for the Apple Watch at the Glowtime event held at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.

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