Apple Inc. has recently announced that its latest artificial intelligence service, Apple Intelligence, is now officially available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The initial set of features has been rolled out to users with the software updates for iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. Leveraging Apple's powerful chip technology, Apple Intelligence offers enhanced language and image understanding capabilities, enabling cross-application operations and simplifying daily tasks, while also making significant strides in privacy protection.
Core functionalities of Apple Intelligence include system-wide Writing Tools, integrated into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, assisting users in optimizing text across email, messages, notes, Pages, and third-party applications. These tools provide text rewriting, proofreading, and summarization, helping users adjust the tone of their text and check grammar and diction.
Siri has also been upgraded with the launch of Apple Intelligence, featuring more natural and fluid interactions, and deeper integration with the system experience. Siri now understands a richer array of languages, even when users' expressions are not perfectly coherent, allowing for smooth comprehension and context-aware responses to consecutive requests.
The Photos app has become smarter, introducing a natural language search function that enables users to search for content within photos and videos by describing the text. Additionally, the Clean Up tool in the Photos app allows users to remove extraneous elements from photos while preserving the intended mood of the shot. The "Memories" feature can select the most suitable photos and videos based on user descriptions, editing them into a narrative-driven film.
In terms of email management, Apple Intelligence enhances user control over the inbox with Priority Messages, displaying the most urgent emails and providing summaries to help prioritize. Users can also record audio in Notes and Phone apps, transcribing it into text and generating summaries.
Apple plans to introduce more AI features in December, including an upgrade to emoji, a new image generation tool called Image Wonderland, an Image Wand tool for converting hand-drawn sketches, and Priority Notifications. Siri's capabilities will also evolve, offering personalized smart services and screen awareness, enabling more in-app and cross-app operations.
The initial features of Apple Intelligence are provided as a free software update and currently support U.S. English, with plans to add support for additional languages and regions in the coming months, including Chinese, Indian English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Apple Intelligence supports iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, as well as iPad and Mac devices equipped with the A17 Pro, M1, or later chips.
