By Dan Moren
July 29, 2024 10:15 AM PT
Last updated October 24, 2024
New betas for iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia bring some Apple Intelligence features
If you’ve been looking forward to injecting a little intelligence in your Apple devices, the time is now. Apple on Monday rolled out developer beta releases of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, which include access to several—but notably, not all—of the company’s previously announced AI-powered features.
Apple Intelligence was undeniably a central push at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June. But Apple also said at the time that many of these features wouldn’t ship until later this year, and sure enough when the first beta releases rolled around, they were conspicuously absent.
Not all features, as I said, will be available to try out in this release. Among those included are the systemwide Writing Tools features to help proofread and rewrite text; inbox prioritization, summaries, and smart reply in Mail; the new Reduce Interruptions focus mode; natural language search for photos and videos as well as the ability to create Memories movies on demands; summaries for transcriptions; and, perhaps most enticingly, improved Siri functionality, including the ability to move between voice and typing, more resilient requests for when you stumble over your words, and answering questions about Apple products.
As for what you won’t find here, don’t expect the contentious image generation features like Image Playground, the ability to clean up and remove unwanted details from photos, and integration with ChatGPT. It’s unclear if those will appear in future builds of these betas, or as subsequent updates after public release. Also unclear is whether there will be a public beta of these versions down the road for non-developers.
Apple previously said that these features would require and iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max or an M1-based iPad or Mac, and those requirements stand for this beta. Once you install the beta, you’ll also have to opt in by joining a waitlist—due, presumably, to manage demand on the servers running Apple’s Private Cloud Compute. Apple says it expects the wait to be only a matter of hours, though times could vary.
Releasing a second set of betas for its platforms before the release of a new major version is unusual for Apple—I don’t recall having seen it in my almost two decades of career—but it certainly speaks to the demand and interest these features have clearly generated. Moreover, giving developers time with these features before their release helps make sure they and their apps are prepared.
This move isn’t without its risk: like any beta, these releases are still in active development, meaning that there may be bugs and other issues—particularly a challenge when it comes to AI-based features. Expect to see plenty of attempts to challenge and subvert any guardrails Apple’s put in place to try and ensure these features live up to their standards.
[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]
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