Apple Intelligence in macOS 15.1 and iOS 18.1
Apple will launch iOS 18.1 next week, bringing its much anticipated generative-AI tools to the iPhone 15 Pro models and the new iPhone 16 lineup. It will be available for most newer iPads and Macs, too.
If you’re expecting AI fireworks, prepare for AI…sparklers. Back in June, at the company’s annual developers conference, executives showed off do-it-yourself emojis, ChatGPT integration and a Siri that can recall the name of a person you met months ago. Apple has even been running ads for some features. None are in this release.
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I’ve been testing Apple Intelligence on my iPhone and iPad. Apple’s ability to build tools right into the operating systems is undeniably powerful and convenient. But many are half-baked. I asked Federighi to explain the features—and Apple’s broader AI strategy.
It’s a very good interview, and also available on YouTube.
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But as Stern herself points out in the article, the features that are shipping are genuinely useful. Notification summaries are good — the occasional mistakes can be funny, but overall it’s solid, and especially helpful for batches of notification from the same app or group text. The Clean Up unwanted-object-remover in Photos is great.
The first version of Apple Intelligence, which has been in beta testing for a few months now and is rolling out broadly next week, is pretty underwhelming. There’s just not much there. Not a lot beyond perhaps notification summaries that you’re going to be using all the time.
The most significant Siri enhancements are scheduled for iOS 18.4 around March 2025. These include onscreen awareness for contextual commands, personal context for better understanding of user data, and expanded app control capabilities. Initially, Apple Intelligence will only support U.S. English, with additional languages planned for next year.
If my memory serves me correctly, it’s roughly the same number Apple shared during the WWDC keynote. So, essentially flat. While 1.5 billion might appear big, when it comes to internet scale, it isn’t such a large number for a company the size of Apple. I looked up the number of active Apple devices. That number is estimated to be 2.2 billion devices — I assume this includes phones, computers, watches, headphones, TV-streaming devices, and speakers. So 1.5 billion requests a day is actually far less than one daily request per active device.
Writing Tools don’t themselves generate new content in text, but use the original text to produce derivatives. I’m particularly looking forward to using its proofreading feature, which can suggest improvements that I can choose to ignore, or adapt to my own style, as I wish.
I’ve relied on Grammarly for years for proofreading. It catches typos, doubled words, and extra spaces, and its newer AI-powered features sometimes make helpful suggestions for recasting awkward sentences. I’m slightly annoyed that Grammarly’s proofreading tools are so helpful, but it’s challenging to edit your own text to a professional level, and Grammarly can identify errors much faster than I can. Don’t assume that tools like Apple Intelligence’s proofreading capabilities for helping with grammar, word choice, and sentence structure are necessarily a crutch. They may be for some people, but even people who care about their writing can still benefit from some suggestions while ignoring unhelpful ones.
AI suggested a total of six changes to my piece, of which three were duplicates – adding periods to bullet-point text.
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Overall, though, a really excellent job.
I am very likely underselling how valuable the new writing tools might prove to people trying to write in a second language, or who simply aren’t capable of expressing themselves well in their first language.
This guide goes over everything you can do with Writing Tools, where you can use them, and what you need to access the feature.
Previously:
- Apple Intelligence in macOS 15.2 and iOS 18.2
- What Is a Photo?
- macOS 15 Sequoia
- iOS 18
- Apple’s Hidden AI Prompts
- Beta for Apple Intelligence in Apple Mail
- The First Apple Intelligence Beta
- Apple Intelligence for Siri in Spring 2025
- Apple Intelligence Announced
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Regarding Malik's breakdown of Siri usage, I have 9 devices registered with Apple and only one of them gets used for Siri, and that's for a handful of timers being set and math calculations every day. I've got dozens of friends and family who use me as tech support, most of whom have multiple devices, and I've never heard of any of them ever using Siri.
No doubt, Siri is feeble. As are the other voice assistants out there. That's kind of okay since it seems to be where the technology is at, so what stands out to me is the over-marketing they've all been accorded. Doesn't make sense to me the level of promotion voice assistants have received from manufacturers when the limitations and unreliability are inescapable.
@NaOH Overall, I’m pretty frustrated with Siri, but I was surprised to see the low usage numbers. I probably do about 25 very basic requests per day. I’m sure others do far more.
I am not sure about the use of AI for something that we have not had before, such as summaries. But there are several use cases that AI could vastly improve: Siri is a tool, and in my house it is a glorified light switch. Siri is not even capable of turning on my bedside light with the consistency of a light switch, turning on all lights at times. Another use case is the HomePod. I have an extensive music collection from all over the world and I am fed up with mispronouncing French artist names just so that Siri can find them. Ditto for autocorrection in some of the languages I speak that require the knowledge of context and grammar (unlike English, seemingly the only language Apple bases its rules on). This is a perfect playing field for AI.
So please Apple, stop trying to find new use cases. Instead use AI to improve existing ones.
I wanted to use Siri to play/stop a podcast while doing yardwork with thick winter gloves on. It didn't end up being as useful as I had imagined it would be. I gave up on it and haven't used it since.
@Old Unix Geek Yeah, I have tried Siri in situations like that, and sometimes it works, but sometimes it gets wedged and won’t let me do anything without unlocking the phone first.
