Apple's biggest technology company has unveiled the iOS 18.1 on Monday and announced its AI platform, known as Apple Intelligence, to work with iPhone 16 and iPhone 15 Pro versions. The update will take the capabilities of Apple Intelligence to iPad and Mac devices, which marks a massive step for the company while increasing the presence of AI to keep interest in the iPhone 16 series released last month.

In line with the emerging pattern among leading tech corporations, other leaders are channeling more focus and investments to the development of cloud-based AI, heavily reliant on the most powerful and effective hardware from Nvidia. Apple stands alone as its emphasis still significantly remains device-centric as its focus is on the phone, utilizing an internal chip within, while carrying out certain computationally intensive functions through its own servers.
First, Apple Intelligence provides a suite of tools with text that can write or proofread the work, object-removing features for photos, and notification summaries that group many alerts into one message. A much-needed refresh was given to Siri in this update - a new look, edges that illuminate the screen and an enhanced ability to respond to queries about products running on Apple. Siri's capabilities are still somewhat limited in-app, although wider capabilities can be expected next year with integration of ChatGPT into iOS 18.2.

According to Bank of America Securities analyst Wamsi Mohan, the feature may boost iPhone sales as demand may "pick up post initial release of Apple Intelligence in late October." However, users have to opt-in and wait for a place on the waitlist. To use Apple Intelligence, one will need an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, or an iPhone 16. The device will then download the AI models after the user has enrolled.
Some features of particular note include a summary alert feature that makes updates easy from market alerts or a group chat. A silent query with Siri can now be reached by swiping up, and the rewording of text can occur across apps, whether by Apple or other services. The options to tone, or make friendly, professional, or concise, when rewording, now exist.

These additional updates include Mail by Apple, the user interface of which extends towards the Photos app too; in this, through its natural language search operation, it can produce some mini-movies from these collections of photos and enhances the experience of iOS for its users in 18.1.

iOS 18.1 download takes you to Settings > General > Software Update. Enrolling for the Apple Intelligence waitlist is found to be through Settings > Apple Intelligence and Siri > Join the Apple Waitlist.