Apple today revealed that iOS 18 is coming on September 16. That’s exactly one week from today, and ahead of the release date for the new iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max, all of which are going to be available on September 20 and ship with iOS 18 preinstalled. The update will be rolled out to all supported iPhones and should become available that day to everyone who wants it — no multi-week rollout shenanigans with Apple (seen that, Google?).
Apple Intelligence will not be part of iOS 18. The first batch of features will arrive as part of iOS 18.1 (and iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1), which will arrive in October. The first batch of features will only be available in US English, with expansion in December promised to include localized English in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK. Next year, Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish will also be supported.
So what AI features will you actually get in October? Writing tools, creating movies based on descriptions in the Memories feature in Photos, finding specific photos using natural language, searching for specific moments in videos, Clean Up which removes things or people from photos, recording audio in Notes and the Phone app, transcribing and summarizing, short notifications, priority messaging in Mail, summarizing emails, Smart Replies in Mail, and a redesigned Siri that supports typing as it pleases and is more “natural” and “flexible.” Siri can also answer “thousands of questions” about Apple device features and settings.
Then, “later this year and in the months following”, you’ll get Image Playground which lets you create images and emojis, Image Wand can create images from sketches, and Siri will use your own personal context to deliver intelligence tailored to you. It will also have onscreen awareness and be able to perform hundreds of new actions across Apple and third-party apps. ChatGPT is also coming in this wave.
Apple Intelligence will only be available for the newly launched iPhone 16 family, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPads and Macs with M1 or later chips.
