Apple Intelligence is getting closer to general availability on iPhone. Release candidates for iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, tvOS 18.1, visionOS 2.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 were published today (October 21).
Release builds arrive one week after the Beta 6 versions of each operating system, which were released on October 14th. For those who don’t know, a release candidate is a final pre-release build of software before it’s fully released to the public.
Although a release candidate is stable and ready to use, this does not mean that critical bugs will not impact the operating system. This is Apple’s final check for anything fragile before release.
Apple touted its AI version, Apple Intelligence, for the launch of the iPhone 16, but curious Apple fans had to wait to try it out.
With the release of the 18.1 beta, Apple gradually added several AI tools to the iPhone. This update adds great new hearing aid features to Air Pods Pro 2 and also enables home hearing testing for people 18 and older.
You can currently try out the features by signing up for the public beta or developer beta, but Apple advises against testing the beta on your primary device. Other features include writing tools, summarized audio transcripts, and email summaries.
Apple intelligence and fixes
Not all Apple Intelligence features announced by Apple are coming to iOS 18 yet, but the first wave will be released in 18.1.
These include new writing tools that are integrated into every app you can type in, summarize text, write for you, and proofread what you’ve written. A cleanup tool has been added to the Photos app to remove unwanted objects and people from your photos, along with conversational search in the Photos app.
Finally, emails and notifications feature AI-powered summaries. Emails and messages also show Smart Reply, which provides suggested responses with priority sorting to highlight important messages.
As part of iOS 18.1, there will be some fixes (spotted by 9to5Mac) for the Photos app, podcasts, and some annoyances in your car’s digital key.
- Podcasts: Fixed an issue where unplayed episodes would be marked as played
- Photos: Fixed an issue that caused stuttering during playback of videos recorded in 4K at 60 fps when “device is warm”.
- Digital Keys: We fixed an issue where the key would not unlock or the car would not start after restoring from a backup or transferring from another iPhone.
- iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Pro: Fixed an unexpected restart issue
As of this writing, there are no release candidate builds for watchOS 11.1, so your Apple Watch may not yet receive the latest features. The company also released regular updates for iOS 17.7.1 and iPadOS 17.7.1.
Last week, when Apple launched the iPad mini 7, the company announced that the full public release of iOS 18.1 would arrive by the end of October. However, the specific date was not disclosed.
We expect Apple to officially launch the update on Monday, October 28th, or shortly thereafter. This gives you about a week to see how the release candidate works in the wild.
