Apple Intelligence: What It Is and What It Can Do

Posted By Mariana Hlodan | 23 Dec 2024

The Cupertino giant's artificial intelligence-based Apple Intelligence technology for Mac and iPhone devices was presented at the WWDC 2024 summer conference. Let's see what Apple Intelligence is, how to use it and what features it offers.

What is Apple Intelligence (AI)

Apple Intelligence is an intelligent system for iPhone, iPad, and Mac built into new versions of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. It uses artificial intelligence to understand your queries, create text and images, perform tasks in apps, and simplify your daily work while keeping your data safe.

According to Craig Federighi at the WWDC 2024 presentation, Apple Intelligence stands out with the following unique elements:

Powerful: Provides really useful features.
Intuitive: Easy to use and accessible to everyone.
Integrated: Fully integrated into Apple devices.
Personal: Understands your personal context and preferences.
Private: Provides a high degree of privacy.
What are Apple Intelligence Features

Features	What Can Apple Intelligence Do
Apple's Ecosystem Integration	Apple Intelligence is available on iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia, providing a unified interface and stable experience across all devices
Writing Tools	Helps you rewrite texts, check errors and quickly create short summaries in different applications.
Communication	Priority Notifications: Artificial intelligence determines which notifications are the most important and prioritizes them so you don't miss anything important. Priority Messages in Mail: AI helps you sort emails by highlighting those that need your attention first. Smart Reply: AI automatically creates email replies and suggests them to you for approval before sending, thus saving you time. Reduce Interruptions: The new Focus mode works such as Do Not Disturb, but with a smart approach - it lets you skip only unimportant notifications so you can focus on what's important.
Audio-Visual Improvements	Apple Intelligence allows you to record, transcribe, and summarize audio in real time. With Image Playground and Genmoji, you can create unique digital images and personalized avatars.
Improved Capabilities in Photos	New features in the Photos app include image search by description and a photo enhancement tool. The Memories feature automatically creates movies with music from Apple Music.
Revamped Siri	Language Understanding: Siri with Apple Intelligence now understands imprecise commands easier, such as: "Call your mom... Oh, no, send her a text." Personalized Assistance: Siri takes into account personal context, such as "Send the latest photos from your Travel album". Screen Awareness: Siri understands what's on the screen and can help, for example "Save this article to your bookmarks" Cross-App Actions: Siri can execute commands in different apps, such as "Create an appointment reminder from this email" or "Add this address from Maps to my contacts". Visual Redesign: Siri now animates the edges of the screen with a glowing effect, creating a brighter and more modern look. Quick Text Input: A quick double-tap at the bottom of the screen brings up a keyboard to enter Siri's prompt with text. Knowledge of Apple Products: Siri can answer questions about your Apple devices and their features, such as "How do I take a screenshot on my iPhone?"
Built-in ChatGPT	Apple has integrated OpenAI's ChatGPT into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. Siri uses it to respond to requests for photos and documents, and Compose in Writing Tools lets you create content. Data remains private, and an OpenAI account is not required.

As you can see, Apple Intelligence will significantly simplify your work, especially everyday tasks, and can noticeably increase your productivity.

When Will Apple Intelligence Be Launched

In the US, Apple Intelligence became available on July 29, 2024 with the beta version of iOS 18.1 and will be free for all users of supported devices. A full launch is planned for 2025.

What Devices Support Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence will only be available on iPhones, iPads and Macs that can support it. Due to high power requirements, it only works on the latest devices:

iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max
iPad with M1, M2 or M4 chips
Macs with M1, M2 or M3 chips

How To Activate Apple Intelligence Beta

So, how to get Apple Intelligence beta? It's worth noting that the Apple Intelligence beta is only available on the devices mentioned above. If you want to install a test version of macOS Sequoia, it's important to remember that the system must be installed on your Mac's primary drive. If you install it on an external drive, Apple Intelligence won't work - you can find detailed instructions for installing macOS Sequoia here:

How to enable Apple Intelligence in macOS Sequoia

Apple Intelligence is not automatically activated after the update. You need to switch to English to activate this feature. Follow these steps:

Go to System Preferences ➝ Basic ➝ Language and Region.
Change the region to the United States.
Set English as the primary language (drag it to the top of the list). The system will reboot to change the language.
Then open System Settings ➝ Apple Intelligence & Siri. Turn on Siri and select English.
Click Join Apple Intelligence Waitlist. The waiting time is approximately from a few minutes to a few hours.
When Apple Intelligence is activated, you will receive a notification. Go to System Preferences and complete the Apple Intelligence setup.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mariana Hlodan
Tech journalist

Mariana Hlodan is an experienced writer specializing in Apple products. With a background in tech journalism, Mariana offers a deep dive into the latest Apple news, product reviews and trends.