After months of promises and much beta testing, Apple is finally releasing iOS 18.1. At least it is part of Apple Intelligence, and not all promised features will be released immediately. Instead, we are getting a rolling release, and new features will appear in future iOS 18.2, 18.3, and 18.4 updates.

I know this is a little confusing, but if you're wondering why certain AI features are apparently missing from your iPhone, that's because it's still a work in progress. That said, iOS 18.1 is a heaping update, with lots of new features. Here are all the Apple Intelligence features that launch as part of iOS 18.1 - and which ones will require a little more patience.

iOS 18.1 is rolling out to all iPhones up to and including the 2018 iPhone Xs, so the update is rolling out for everyone starting today.Apple Intelligence is limited to some recent iPhones, especially those with 8GB of RAM It is not offered on all phones, as it is limited to devices.

Unless you have an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro or iPhone 16 Pro Max, Apple Intelligence is out of your reach. It is. As far as we know, this situation will not change in the near future, so owners of older iPhones should never expect any surprise AI upgrades.

Writing Tools is a feature available throughout iOS 18.1 and can be used anywhere you can type. The idea is that these tools improve your writing in a variety of ways, including spelling and grammar checks, rewriting sections of text in a whole new tone, and a summary tool that can give you an overview of highlighted sections of text.

For more information on how to use Apple Intelligence's writing tools, see this guide.

The Photos app now has the ability to create what Apple calls movie memories. Based on your prompts, the app uses AI to stitch together photos and videos to create a movie slideshow.

AI photo editing tools can work miracles on your snapshots; Photo Clean Up is Apple's take on Google's Magic Eraser, which identifies unwanted objects and people in photos and removes them before generating AI with the ability to fill in the gaps.

Apple has also made significant changes to the photo search feature, allowing you to actually find what you are looking for. This is all due to the new natural language search feature, which is able to understand more complex search requests. This means that you no longer need to be concerned with individual words or complex filter selections to find the photos you want.

We all know the pain of having to individually check an avalanche of notifications to see which ones are important. Thankfully, in iOS 18.1, AI does all the work, filtering out unhelpful notifications and notifying you of more important or actionable notifications.

Siri has been long overdue for an upgrade, and while iOS 18.1 still has some changes, iOS 18.1 brings major changes to Apple's AI assistant. iOS 18.1 brings major changes to Apple's AI assistant. Siri can now speak in a more conversational tone, while at the same time better understanding everything you ask Siri to do. In other words, it is now closer to a human than ever before and can carry on a conversation beyond the initial voice command. In case the normal voice commands are not appropriate.

If your inbox is anything like mine, you get a lot of emails every day. Which ones are important and actually need to be handled first; Apple Intelligence will detect the time-sensitive emails and display them at the top of your inbox.

For those who don't know how to reply to an email or message, Smart Reply is an absolute lifesaver. With this feature, you can choose among AI-generated replies, and Apple Intelligence can also understand the content of the message and adapt possible replies accordingly.

If you still don't have time to read an email or text from beginning to end, perhaps because it is a bit too long, Apple Intelligence can summarize everything for you. It goes into more detail than a basic excerpt, giving you the gist of the message so you can decide if you need to go back and read it in more detail.

iOS 18.1 includes a new focus mode called “reduce interruptions,” which uses AI to prioritize notifications and only let through the really important alerts. This way, you can work on what needs to be done while knowing that something urgent is happening. The core of this focus is called “Intelligent Breakthrough & Silencing” and the same conditions can be applied to all existing focus modes.

With iOS 18.1, Apple's Phone app allows users to record and transcribe phone calls as well as summarize the content of those conversations. This way, it is easier to refer back to the call and figure out what was going on and when, without having to look through the recording or transcription. This summary feature also applies to recordings made in the Notes application.

Visual Intelligence, a feature exclusive to iPhone 16, is essentially Apple's take on Google Lens. However, it has the advantage of accessing the feature through the camera control buttons. Visual Intelligence is essentially an AI Vision-style feature that uses the camera to view and analyze the world around you.

It can translate text, search the web for things you see in real life, and so on. Visual intelligence will be included in iOS 18.2 and is currently available in the iOS 18.2 developer beta.

It wouldn't be AI without the option to create images out of nowhere. You provide a prompt for what you want to see, and Image Playground will generate an image relevant to you.

Apple does not have its own chatbot, but in partnership with OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, it will introduce one in iOS 18.2. The chatbot will be integrated into Siri and will be able to speak to ChatGPT and send prompts to the chatbot just like Apple's own AI assistant. The difference is that ChatGPT has access to even more information and features; ChatGPT can also integrate with Image Playground and Writing Tools, allowing various apps to generate images and text regardless of Siri's involvement ChatGPT and iOS 18. Learn more about ChatGPT and iOS 18. 2.

Genmoji

I need emoji, but none of the official options feel right Genmoji is a feature coming to Apple Messages in iOS 18.2 that can provide custom emoji prompts created using generative AI.

Siri received some significant upgrades in iSS 18.2, but the biggest upgrade will likely not come until iOS 18.4. So even if you have been waiting for Siri to better control and recognize what is happening on your phone, it will likely be a while yet.

These features include on-screen awareness, which allows Siri to see what is happening on the screen when you are talking to Siri, and what Apple calls personal context. This will allow the AI assistant to act more like a real person when you are talking to it; Siri will also have access to more applications and control over what is happening in the software, which was previously limited Siri will also be able to access more applications and control what is happening in the software, which was previously limited.

Another image generator, Image Wand, allows you to turn a handwritten sketch into a more detailed image via the Notes app; according to Apple, Image Wand can also create images using the surrounding context if necessary. In case your sketching skills aren't very good - I definitely am. This should be coming in iOS 18.2.

iOS 18.1 officially offers Apple Intelligence only to the US, but other regions can access this feature by setting their systems to US English. Apple has confirmed that other regions and languages will officially support Apple Intelligence in the near future, which will change in the future. In fact, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand are expected to be supported in iOS 18.2.

Apple has also confirmed that Apple Intelligence will be available in Chinese, French, Japanese, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Korean, Vietnamese and more languages sometime in 2025 on iOS 18.4.