These iOS 18.1 features could make the biggest difference for users

iOS 18.1 will arrive for compatible iPhone models near the end of October, bringing a variety of powerful new AI features with it. Apple Intelligence is being pitched as ‘AI for the rest of us.’ Here are the upcoming features that serve as great examples of that, with potential to make the biggest impact for the most users.

Notification summaries

I’ve previously dubbed notification summaries the ‘killer feature’ of Apple Intelligence, and I stand by that.

Notifications summaries can do two main things:

1. Summarize the contents of a longer message or email, rather than showing a small snippet of the actual message.
2. Consolidate a stack of multiple notifications into a single, digestible blurb.

By doing this, they make notifications both more informative and actionable.

At a glance, you gain more understanding of what a string of messages is all about, or the contents of an email.

You can turn on summaries for all apps, or only select ones. Personally, I’ve found them most useful for anything involving messages or email.

Notifications are a huge part of the iPhone experience, and iOS 18.1 will make them better than ever.

Inbox summaries and priority mail

Similar to notification summaries, iOS 18.1 uses summaries to make navigating your inbox easier.

When viewing your inbox In Apple Mail, the short excerpts each message used to show are now content summaries instead.

Thanks to summaries, you can make more informed decisions about whether to read or ignore a given email—all with just a glance.

And because Apple Intelligence understands the contents of all your messages, it will now bump the most important ones right to the top.

Apple calls this ‘Priority mail,’ and it’s a great addition to ensure critical communications get your attention.

A new beginning for Siri

Siri is getting better in iOS 18.1…but only partly.

iPhone users will see a new, glowing design for Siri in iOS 18.1. You’ll be able to type Siri requests with a double-tap on the bottom of your screen. Siri can also now answer all sorts of questions about Apple products and software features.

But perhaps the two changes that will impact users most are Siri’s conversational skills.

Siri in iOS 18.1 is much more forgiving when you stumble over your words. It can understand, in a more human-like way, when you change your mind about something mid-sentence.

It can also carry a sense of context between requests. So if you ask a question about a sports team, for example, then follow up by asking “Who’s their quarterback?”, Siri will know who ‘their’ refers to.

That’s it for iOS 18.1, but Apple has a lot of big plans for Siri in the year ahead. By next spring, the assistant will be able to:

• tap into ChatGPT to answer more requests than ever before
• understand your personal context, with awareness of emails you’ve received, people you’ve met, etc. and provide you that info
• perform a ton of powerful new actions from your favorite apps—without needing to open those apps
• complete cross-app actions too, like sending photos from yesterday’s party to your spouse—again, without even opening an app
• understand what’s on your screen at any given time, taking action on anything you’re looking at with ease

That future version of Siri should be impressive. For now, the new Siri era is just getting started.

iOS 18.1 features: Wrap-up

iOS 18.1 will bring a lot more features than what I’ve outlined above, including new writing tools, powerful Photos app changes, and more. The end of the month can’t come soon enough.

Have you been using the iOS 18.1 beta? Which features have made the biggest impact on your iPhone use? Let us know in the comments.