Apple revealed its big system-level AI upgrade for iPhone, iPad, and Mac earlier this year, called Apple Intelligence. It’s now available to try for the first time as a beta release.
Apple has now released the first beta builds of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, which are the first releases with the Apple Intelligence (“AI”) features initially shown off at WWDC 2024. Apple is still testing its major software updates for the year, including iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia 15, and this new beta release is another confirmation that Apple’s AI magic will arrive after the major updates.
This first beta includes inbox prioritization and smart reply in the Mail app, system-wide Writing Tools for proofreading and rewriting text, natural language search for photos and videos, improvements to the Siri voice assistant, and the Reduce Interruptions focus mode. However, the image generation features and ChatGPT integration that were also shown off at WWDC are still missing.
Apple Intelligence features use large language models (LLMs) running on the device, instead of the cloud servers, so it won’t work on all devices. It requires an iPhone or iPad with an A17 Pro chipset, which is only in the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro Max (not the base iPhones) or earlier iPhones), or a Mac or iPad with an M1 chip or newer. For now, there’s also a waitlist on top of the hardware requirements, but that will likely go away around the time these updates roll out to everyone.
You can sign up for the Apple Beta Software Program from the company’s website. However, beta software is experimental and unfinished, and you probably shouldn’t install it on a phone or computer that needs to remain fully functional. This is mostly intended for app developers or people with spare devices.
Source: Six Colors
