Apple announced the iPhone 16, the first iPhone designed with AI in mind. The company’s iPhone 16 marketing also focuses on Apple Intelligence. However, the iOS 18 operating system on all four iPhone 16 models does not offer Apple Intelligence features. In other words, Apple is selling features on the new iPhone 16 that you can’t even use once you take it out of the box.
Apple’s AI is still in development, and the only way to get it is to install iOS 18.1 beta on your iPhone. Even then, you only get a portion of Apple Intelligence, not the complete package.
That being said, Apple was upfront about Apple Intelligence when it announced the iPhone 16 series. The company said the first features will be available in October as part of a phased rollout of Apple Intelligence. Apple never informed iPhone 16 buyers of the release date of the iOS 18.1 update. It turns out that the release of iOS 18.1 will take longer, with Apple expected to release it on October 28th.
The origin of the date bloomberg’s Mark Garman. An often trusted reporter said in his article: power on He received the release date of the first batch of Apple Intelligence features in his newsletter. On Monday, October 28th, you’ll be able to download iOS 18.1 to your iPhone 16. As a reminder, iOS 18.1 also brings Apple Intelligence to the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. These are the only “old” iPhones. It can run Apple’s AI.
Apple is presumably taking its time with the rollout to “eliminate critical bugs and ensure we can support all new traffic on our AI cloud servers.”
iOS 18.1 brings several AI features to supported iPhones, including notification summaries, some AI writing tools, web page summaries, and some new Siri features. However, you will have to wait for iOS 18.2 for ChatGPT integration and Genmoji emoji to be available.
After that, Apple will probably release iOS 18.4 in March, which adds some Apple Intelligence features. Siri upgrades that Apple demoed at WWDC, including the ability to control apps and answer questions using your device’s personal information, will not be available prior to that update.
Gurman also said features such as the Image Playground app, which generates AI images, and automatic email filing features in the Mail app will become available after iOS 18.1 is released. It’s unclear how long it will take for these features to be available.
What Gurman doesn’t say is that the Apple Intelligence deployment described above doesn’t apply to some major markets, but I’ll try to do it for you. Apple has not yet announced plans to bring Apple Intelligence to Europe and China.
I’m an iPhone 16 owner living in Europe, and none of the Apple Intelligence features listed above are available. The slightly better news about this is that perhaps more Apple Intelligence features will be available at once once Apple is ready to roll it out in the region.
Overall, the gradual rollout of Apple Intelligence isn’t the best thing that could have happened with Apple’s AI. But it’s probably for the best. Apple is already far behind the AI party and should aim to provide the best experience possible.
Looking into the more distant future, Apple will probably never have to deal with this embarrassing scenario again of launching an entirely new iPhone and selling it based on features that don’t actually exist yet.
Finally, I expect Apple to eventually match what OpenAI and Google are doing in terms of AI. New AI capabilities will be released when they are ready for public availability. Apple should take the same approach once Apple Intelligence is more mature, instead of always waiting for the latest iPhone to be ready.
Returning to Garman’s prediction, sources say Apple plans to launch the M4 MacBook Pro and other M4 Macs on November 1st, the same week as iOS 18.1 is released. Apple also plans to sell new Macs as AI-enabled, but it’s unclear whether Apple will hold another press event for its next product line.
