After months of delayed updates, the full picture of Apple Intelligence is starting to become clear. We’re still a long way from the future where Siri does things for you, as promised last June. But many of the basics are already in place. And there are a lot of them.
As Apple tries to find its footing, iOS 18 is packed with so many AI features that it can be hard to remember which new features are where. Over the past few months, I’ve tried every feature I had access to as soon as I had access to the beta version. Some features are still clearly lacking, but others come back to us again and again.
If you’re nervous about Apple Intelligence or just feeling confused, there’s an easy way to understand it. Of course, to use Apple Intelligence you need a compatible iPhone and the feature must be enabled from (Settings) > (Apple Intelligence & Siri) > (Apple Intelligence).
clean up photos
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Cleanup is one of the Apple Intelligence features I’ve used a lot over the past few weeks, and one I’ve recommended to friends. This helped me remove people from the background of my beach vacation photos. It also helped me save one of my favorite engagement photos. With a swipe of my finger, I was able to remove unsightly electrical outlets from my photos.
The cleanup feature is in the Photos app. Select a photo, tap the (Edit) button and go to the (Cleanup) tab. Here you can circle, highlight, or color the object you want to remove. If this feature recognizes something is out of place, it will suggest that you remove it. Sometimes automatic detection doesn’t work, but I’ve found that manually zooming in and highlighting does the trick. For more information, see our detailed guide on using the cleanup feature.
Type in Siri (and ChatGPT)
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Apple Intelligence brings a shiny new, colorful Siri to the mix. It’s just a fresh coat of paint at the moment, but one thing I’m finding really useful is the new Type to Siri feature. Double-tap the home bar and Siri will pop up on your keyboard. Now you can create and send any command you want.
Integrating ChatGPT makes this even better. If you start a sentence with “Ask ChatGPT” (which also works with voice), Siri will skip its own knowledge base and go directly to ChatGPT for help. You can then converse with ChatGPT within the same window and copy ChatGPT responses.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
I’m not a big fan of using AI writing tools for any kind of professional writing, but for things like creating concise lists or summarizing from long notes, I’m not a big fan of using AI writing tools for any kind of professional writing, but for things like creating concise lists or summarizing long notes, the Apple Notes app is great. I like using the writing tools feature in . long study. (However, parents may want to consider blocking writing tools on their children’s computers.)
The (Write Tool) icon is located in the Notes app’s toolbar. You’ll also see this icon in the pop-up menu when you select text in text-based apps like Mail.
Please summarize everything
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Apple Intelligence can summarize all kinds of information. Reader view has a (Summary) button to get a summary of the web page, and the Mail app similarly displays a summary at the top. But the most interesting part of this feature is the notification overview.
Here, Apple takes a bunch of notifications from the same app, conversation, or thread and summarizes them in just one sentence. If you’re one of those people who’s part of countless iMessage groups, you might want to give it a try.
However, the jury is still out on how useful notification summaries are. Since these are generated using LLM, hallucinations and misunderstandings may occur. This becomes a problem when trying to summarize various headlines from a news app (the BBC has already argued this point, and Apple may add warning labels to notification summaries).
As with all things AI, my suggestion is to remain vigilant. I find summaries useful, so I’ve enabled this feature for my messaging app. However, if something is even remotely important, I read it manually. We also recommend disabling notification summary features such as news apps and banking apps. To do this, go to (Settings) > (Notifications) > (Notifications Overview).
There’s something hidden here. Apple Intelligence extends its new call recording feature in an interesting way. This feature is available on all phones running iOS 18.1. However, if Apple Intelligence is enabled, your iPhone will offer to transcribe the call live and generate a summary.
Upgrade to dynamic focus mode
Credit: Pranay Parab
We’ve been asking for a smart Do Not Disturb mode for years, and Apple Intelligence now has a new focus mode called “Reduced Disruptions.” This focus mode acts as a smart filter so that notifications deemed important (like a message from your bank or a call from your boss) will still arrive even when you’re in Do Not Disturb mode. Like regular focus modes, this feature is also fully customizable. Go to (Settings) > (Focus) > (Reduce Interruptions).
Apple Intelligence still needs work
You may have noticed that many Apple Intelligence features are not listed, such as Image Playground, Genmoji, and Visual Search. Although these features are in beta, they are still under development.
