Apple Intelligence Now Available for Select iOS Users
Apple continues to forge ahead with bolder and stronger integration of artificial intelligence throughout its ecosystem, launching Apple Intelligence functionality for some users today in the iOS and iPadOS 18.1 developer beta. While the new features have entered early access, they are only available to those who own the latest devices—iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad Pros with M4 chip. While the public does not currently have access to these updates, it provides an exciting look at how Apple’s AI tools are advancing. Which brings us to our next episode of Ask Aayush, where we detail these new features and share our initial thoughts.
Major Siri Redesign
One of the main highlights from this beta is a complete overhaul to Siri (Apple’s virtual assistant). Siri itself has a new design, accompanied by light running around the edges of your device that lights up when Siri is engaged. They add a nice sense of motion to the experience, which helps give some life and personality and now a futuristic detail that makes it more engaging. However, this visual update is just the surface. The real innovation is Siri’s improved contextuality. This means that in our testing, Siri has significantly less trouble figuring out what exactly we are asking and thus providing a half-way sensible answer. In other questions like about the weather or just some facts on landmarks, Siri showed her wittiness by giving quick and direct answers, hence demonstrated a further level of engagement. This might be most appreciated by those who use Siri a lot, as it makes voice commands smoother and more accurate.
Advanced Writing Tools Boost Productivity
Some other notable new features in this beta include writing tools that enhance productivity. They create user-friendly tools that can re-phrase, proofread, or summarize text with ease, ensuring you always write as professional (or casual!). This is particularly useful for seasoned professionals and students who are in a hurry to produce quality documents. There is clear potential in these tools; however, they still are only in beta. We need to remember, it is not feature-complete and maybe some of us will face a few problems from time to time. However, it is noteworthy that Apple has any of these in there to show a direction for the AI-driven improvements which are going to come into our regular lives and make them better.
One of the Most Demanded Features—Call Recording
Apple has finally provided a feature every user wanted for so long, and it is call recording. This is big news, especially if you are one of those call recording-obsessed folks. A simple call recording feature that fits in well with the existing interface and is easy to use, it allows you to record calls on your phone with just a few taps. That said, it does come with the usual beta feature warnings. As the laws differ greatly between countries, users should be familiar with their local regulations on call recording.
While this beta comes with an impressive array of features, a few once-expected capabilities are still conspicuously missing:
- Image Generation
- GenMoji
- ChatGPT Integration
A GPT-3 webhook for generating images, GenMoji (an NLP-only version of DALL-E), and ChatGPT integration—all likely to make it into future updates—were also omitted in this beta release. This is expected to improve user engagement even more, especially in the field of creative dialogue-based AI applications. For those who are disappointed, however, we should point out that features this advanced aren’t typically all added to Apple products at the same time. The fact that they’re nowhere to be seen in this release suggests Apple could still be taking its time with them, making sure these tools are deeply developed before being brought out into the light.
Verdict: Should You Try It?
iOS 18.1 Developer Beta Offers a First Taste for the Brave
If you’ve got an extra iPhone burning a hole in your pocket, or don’t mind properly backing up and managing data on iOS devices that are not intended to be used as primary daily drivers, you might want to check out these new features in this developer beta of iOS 18. The new Siri UI and context—for example, a show you viewed in Hulu can be picked up where you left off from Search—are significant advances on the AI-driven personal assistant. So they may be quite suitable for you, but it may be wise to wait until a public beta release, which could come out in the next few months if you’re an average user. This second release would probably be more mature and reliable, which means a less buggy experience.
Overall, Apple’s latest AI attempt through its iOS and iPadOS 18.1 developer beta is a good move for the future of tech. Despite the AI features that several manufacturers have already introduced and ended up becoming bleak gimmicks, it looks like Apple is going to be doing something a little more useful. And finally, they’d like the smaller changes to add up and maybe be enough when combined with providing a much better Siri and power productivity tools—something that could potentially get users on board.