As expected, Apple today released its iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 updates, which bring the first Apple Intelligence features to compatible iPhones, iPads, and Macs. Apple Intelligence requires an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16, or an iPad or Mac powered by an Apple Silicon chip.
There aren’t any big surprises in today’s updates, as all three updates had a Release Candidate released last week that included releases notes disclosing the new features in the update.
New Features of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1
Systemwide Writing Tools
Integrated across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, Writing Tools allow users to refine their language by rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing text in Mail, Messages, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps.
Rewrite allows users to choose from different versions of what they have written, allowing them to adjust the tone — professional, concise, or friendly — to suit the audience and task at hand.
Proofread checks the user’s grammar, word choice, and sentence structure, alongside suggested edits, including explanations of the edits, that users can review or accept.
Users can also select text and have Apple Intelligence create a summary in the form of a digestible paragraph, bulleted key points, a table, or a list.
More Natural and Conversational Siri
Siri now shows itself as a glowing light that wraps around the edge of your iPhone, iPad, or CarPlay screen. Siri is more natural and is deeply integrated into iOS, iPadOS, and CarPlay. Mac users can place Siri anywhere on their desktop for easy access.
Users can type to Siri at any time on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and can quickly switch between text and voice. Siri now boasts richer language-understanding capabilities, meaning it can follow you even when you stumble over words. Siri can also maintain context from one request to the next. Siri can also now answer thousands of questions about the features and settings of Apple products.
More Intelligent Photos App
The Photos app is more intelligent. New natural language search gives users the ability to search for just about anything by simply describing what they are looking for. The feature can also work across videos, allowing users to search for something that happened in a specific segment of the video. Smart completion suggestions allow users to quickly complete a search.
The Clean Up tool gives users a way to remove unwanted object or persons.
The Memories feature now gives users the ability to create the movies they want to see by simply typing a description. Apple Intelligence can also now pick out the best photos and videos based on a description, craft a storyline with chapters based on themes identified from the photos, and arrange them into a movie with its own narrative arc.
Prioritize and Stay Focused
Priority Messages, which is a new section at the top of the inbox in Mail, displays the most urgent emails. Users can see email summaries without needing to open a message, and Summarize displays important details. Smart Reply provides suggestions for a quick response and can identify questions in the body of an email to ensure they are all answered.
New Apple Intelligence-related notification summaries allow users to scan long or stacked notifications with key details right on the Lock Screen.
Users can now record, transcribe, and summarize audio in the Notes and Phone apps. When a recording is initiated on a call, all participants are automatically notified, and at the end of the call, Apple Intelligence generates a summary of the call.
Other New Features
There are other new features included in today’s release, including the new AirPods Pro 2 Hearing Health Features, which require both iOS 18.1 and AirPods Pro 2 running firmware 7B19. Currently, only folks in the US have access to Hearing Protection, Hearing Tests, and Hearing Aids. Only Hearing Protection is available in Canada, while users in Germany and Japan get Hearing Tests and Hearing Aids. Apple will be rolling out these features out to additional countries as it receives the regulatory approval in those countries.
The Control Center has received more customization options, including new buttons for VPN, WiFi, Satellite Communication, AirDrop, and more. An option in the Settings app allows users to reset the Control Center layout to the default.
The iOS 18.1 release notes also include natural language search on the App Store, RCS Business Messaging, and the ability to send Game Center invites from the Contacts app.
iOS 18.1 also includes 27 security fixes to patch vulnerabilities discovered in iOS 18.0 and iOS 18.0.1.
Availability
- The first set of Apple Intelligence features is available now as a free software update with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, and can be accessed in most regions around the world when the device and Siri language are set to U.S. English.
- Apple Intelligence is quickly adding support for more languages. In December, Apple Intelligence will be available for localized English in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K., and in April, a software update will deliver expanded language support, with more coming throughout the year. Chinese, English (India), English (Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese, and other languages will be supported.
- Apple Intelligence is available on 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, and Mac with M1 and later.
In addition to the above updates, Apple has also released iOS 17.7.1, iPadOS 17.7.1, macOS Sonoma 14.7.1, and macOS Ventura 13.7.1 with similar security fixes.
