Apple Intelligence - a full breakdown of Apple's AI features in iOS 18.1

Apple has rolled out its first artificial intelligence-powered features to its products, but under the branding of Apple Intelligence, a slew of new features are designed to provide more value to the user by increasing the "intelligence" level of the device.

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Apple Intelligence has become available with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. As for what devices are supported, Apple Intelligence is available on the iPhone 15 Pro and above, M1 and later iPad Pro models, M1, and later iPad Air models, and the M1 and above for the MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac Mini. Additionally, M1 Max and later Mac Studio models will support Apple Intelligence, along with the M2 Ultra Mac Pro.

The limitation on the number of products that can support Apple Intelligence can be traced back to the Apple Silicon within each product. Apple Intelligence requires a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) and substantial RAM capacity, which some of the products lack. For example, Apple's A16 Bionic chip that was used to power the iPhone 14 Pro, 14 Pro Max, 15, and 15 Plus has 6GB of RAM and an NPU capable of 17 TOPS (trillions of operations per second). Apple has made the cutoff point for Apple Intelligence at the iPhone 15 Pro, which is powered by the A17 Pro chip and has 8GB of RAM and a 35 TOPS NPU.

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Apple touched on this during its initial presentation of Apple Intelligence, with its head of machine learning and AI, John Giannandrea, saying that Apple Intelligence requires substantial bandwidth on the device and a powerful Apple Neural Engine (NPU). It appears that Apple Intelligence requires at least 8GB of RAM and 35 TOPS, as that is the base specification on the latest A18 and A18 Pro chips found in the iPhone 16 lineup. The same applies to MacBooks and iPads and their respective chips.

Apple states that it is rolling out Apple Intelligence in stages, with iOS 18.1 being the first in a long process of familiarising users with the new suite of AI-powered features that will be at their fingertips.

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Writing Tools

Writing Tools is designed to refine the language used by the user into different forms while also being a helpful tool for proofreading important messages, making suggestions based on what to write based on the information provided on screen, and summarizing bodies of text into easily digestible footnotes. Furthermore, Rewrite will enable users to completely overhaul what they have written in a different writing style, with writing style options such as professional, funny, concise, friendly, etc.

As you can imagine, Proofread checks highlighted text for any grammatical errors, sentence structure issues, and general improvements. If it detects any improvements, it will provide these to the user via suggestions. Notably, these suggestions have explanations, which is a very nice touch from Apple as the user can see the reasoning behind the suggestion. Additionally, users can select text and summarize it into a simple, digestible paragraph, bullet points, or even a table.

Siri Overhaul

Apple intends to make Siri more human, and to do that, she needs to be able to communicate better with humans through natural language. iOS 18.1 introduced that change and made Siri a much more integrated part of the iPhone, with big improvements to its understanding of language. This was demonstrated by Siri still being able to fulfill a request even after I purposefully stumbled over my words in an attempt to add more difficulty.

Furthermore, Siri can now maintain context from one request to the next and has been injected with extensive knowledge about Apple products and thousands of answers about features, settings, applications, etc. Users can even ask Siri how to share a Wi-Fi password or take a screen recording, and the upgraded AI will respond with thorough instructions.

Photos App Becomes Intelligent

The Photos App has received a substantial improvement in iOS 18.1 as users are now able to use natural language to search through their library of photos. For example, users can now search for "Food I ate in Taiwan," and all the images of food from your trip to Taiwan will appear in the results. Apple has also made this feature available for videos, but it's even more specific, as users will be able to quickly jump to that section in the video that's being searched for.

Apple has also rolled out Clean Up, a new tool that enables users to remove entire elements from images and video. The tool is extremely simple to use and incredibly powerful, being capable of cropping out entire objects, people, and anything else in between from an image or video by simply selecting the tools and painting over the target element. Once painted, Apple Intelligence will cut around the target element, cut it out of the image, and attempt to blend the surrounding background into the vacant area of the image.

Lastly, users can now create memory movies with simple descriptions in natural language. For example, a user could create a memory movie by simply writing, "Everything we ate in Taiwan 2024".

Prioritization Features

Apple has added a new feature to the top of the Mail app called "Priority Messages,," which will contain all of a user's most important messages. Examples of what will appear here are boarding passes for flights, calendar invitations, deliveries, reservations, etc. Additionally, summaries will be generated for mail without even having to open it, and this will occur for mail that has particularly long threads.

Notification Summaries are also a new way Apple wants to enable users to streamline their day, as Apple Intelligence can provide a short summary of long or stacked notifications right on the device's Lock Screen. For example, suppose a group chat is extremely active. In that case, Apple Intelligence can summarize all the notifications that come through and catch the user up quickly on what is being discussed. Apple has also added a new Focus mode called Reduce Interruptions, which only showcases notifications that might need immediate attention.

Users can now record, transcribe, and summarise audio in the Notes and Phone apps. For example, when a user is on a call, they can start recording the audio. However, when a recording is initiated, it will notify all users on the phone that a recording has been started. Additionally, Apple Intelligence will generate a summary of the conversation in key points in the event the conversation needs to be referenced.

What's Coming?

Apple isn't finished with Apple Intelligence by any means, as the company outlines in its announcement that more features will be released in December, with more capabilities rolling out in the coming months. Apple has Genmoji and Image Playground on the horizon, which will enable users to create custom emojis by simply typing a description or using an image of a friend or family member, and Image Playground, which allows users to create images in moments.

December will also have improvements to Writing Tools, as users will be able to describe a specific change they want to apply to text and implement it to the target area. An example of this would be selecting a sentence and making it sound more sophisticated by improving the accuracy of the words used. Moreover, December will see the integration of ChatGPT further into iOS as users will be able to access the powerful AI model within Writing Tools and Siri.

How to Enable Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence is available now as a free software update with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. Apple informs us that it will be available in most regions worldwide when the device has set its Siri language to US English. Apple states it will be making its new AI features available in more languages and regions within the coming months, with the new feature becoming available in localized English in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK in December.

Apple Intelligence December Availability

• Australia
• Canada
• Ireland
• New Zealand
• South Africa
• United Kingdom

April Update Expands Language Support

• Chinese
• English (India)
• English (Singapore)
• French
• German
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Portuguese
• Spanish
• Vietnamese

Apple Intelligence Compatible Devices

• iPhone 16
• iPhone 16 Plus
• iPhone 16 Pro
• iPhone 16 Pro Max
• iPhone 15 Pro
• iPhone 15 Pro Max
• iPad with A17 Pro or M1 and later
• Mac with M1 and later