Apple on Monday confirmed that iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 will become generally available. Most importantly, however, it marks the roll-out of the first collection of Apple Intelligence features; the company unveiled the ones at WWDC last June.

However, the generative AI product runs on only the chosen Apple devices. This includes the new iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, all of the iPhone 16 series, the iPads based on the A17 Pro Chip-that comprises the newest iPad mini-and then Mac, M1 or later-powered.

When the upgrade is downloaded, Apple will ask you to opt in for the feature. This, then, puts you into a waitlist that ought not to take more than a couple of hours to resolve. The company acted out of character because what this LLM-based offer needs is a remote server. In a nutshell, Apple wants its back end ready for the big compute demands.

Not every function needs to be processed off-board, though. One piece that distinguishes the system from ones like ChatGPT is its small model approach. The new Apple Intelligence features are trained on a select dataset for specific functions as opposed to the massive black box used by others.

The first wave of features for Apple Intelligence includes writing tools integrated directly into the device, image cleanup, article summaries, and a typing input for the all-new Siri experience. Next set of features will come along with iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2, available today as developer betas.

These updates will have an additional list of Apple Intelligence updates, which include Genmoji, Image Playground, Visual Intelligence, Image Wand, and integration with ChatGPT. Apple hasn't released a date yet for the GA on those updates.