Everything You Need to Know About Apple Intelligence

Over the last couple of years, artificial intelligence has taken over the world. This seemingly new technology has had such an impact that, suddenly, all big tech companies believe they need to implement AI into all their products.

All big tech companies, including Apple. This year, the Cupertino company decided to announce its own AI technology, cleverly called Apple Intelligence. 

This Limited-Time Microsoft Office Deal Gets You Lifetime Access for Just $39

Sick and tired of subscriptions? Get a lifetime license for Microsoft Office Home and Business 2021 at a great price!

This new technology is meant to make using your Apple devices even easier. Apple promises that it will allow you to do many things. 

Even though Apple Intelligence has had a slow start so far, we’ve been getting many new features since the launch of the iPhone 16 and iOS 18.1.

That said, some of us might still not know what Apple Intelligence is and what it offers. So, if you want to know everything that your iPhone, iPad, or Mac are capable of, keep reading.

What Is Apple Intelligence?

Apple introduced Apple Intelligence during its June 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and the world was taken by surprise.

With it, Apple confirmed that it was its very own personal intelligence technology that would let you use your iPhone and other Apple devices in a new, different way. 

Apple Intelligence brings a bunch of new AI features to the iPhone, making it easier to correct your writing, create images, or even edit pictures.

In a nutshell, it’s very similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, but for Apple devices.

Is Apple Intelligence Safe?

Apple has been working hard to ensure we know how secure Apple Intelligence is, and for a good reason.

With all the prompts and information you’re willing to give AI assistants, it would be bad for Apple’s bottom line if someone managed to hack into its servers and steal all of that information.

This is why Apple has made it very clear that Apple Intelligence is private and secure. This works in two different ways.

For starters, the most basic questions and prompts you can ask your iPhone to do are handled with its on-device processing. This means that Apple will never get this information, and your iPhone will only understand the context because it can process your iPhone’s information without sending it anywhere else.

If you have more complex prompts that your iPhone can’t handle by itself, your device will send that request to Apple’s servers using what the company calls Private Cloud Compute. This technology uses Apple’s servers to complete your more complex requests. 

These servers are powered by Apple silicon and are only used to complete your request. Your personal data is never stored, making it impossible for Apple or any other hacker to know who made that request.

Additionally, Apple claims that any “independent privacy and security researchers can verify this privacy promise at any time,” showing that they don’t have much to hide here. 

Not only that but it was recently reported that Apple is offering $1 million to whoever manages to hack its servers. Of course, the company is not doing this to brag; instead, it wants to find any security flaws the developers might have overlooked.

This can reassure Apple users that their data will not be stored and that Apple Intelligence is safe to use.

What About ChatGPT Integration?

In time, Apple Intelligence will make Siri much smarter than it already is, but it won’t know everything. For anything that even Siri can’t help you with, Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT integration.

Luckily, if you don’t think ChatGPT is safe enough to use, it’s worth noting that your iPhone will ask for permission to use ChatGPT beforehand, so you won’t have to. Likewise, you won’t have to link your current ChatGPT account to your iPhone if you don’t want to. You can use ChatGPT for free without an active account, in which case Apple promises that any data sent to ChatGPT will be completely anonymous.

Apple Intelligence’s Most Notable Features

Apple Intelligence brings many new possibilities to the iPhone and other Apple devices. Now, there are many new ways to use and interact with your Apple devices, and this will probably only get better as technology improves.

That said, if you have access to Apple Intelligence, you can already check out a ton of noteworthy features.

Available Apple Intelligence Features

At the time of this writing, these are some of the best features of Apple Intelligence that you can try right now:

Clean Up Tool

1. Clean Up Tool: This is a new Photos app feature that will let you edit your picture in just a few seconds. With it, you can remove other objects in your photos, and Apple Intelligence will fill the void instantly with what it thinks it would look like before the project.
2. Transcription Summaries: Thanks to iOS 18, the Notes app can now record and transcribe your notes. While that’s already pretty helpful, Apple Intelligence takes it one step further. It also lets you create summaries of all your transcriptions, which is a perfect tool for students or people who constantly record their meetings.
3. Summarize Articles Online: Safari also lets you summarize any article you’re reading. To do so, you only need to access Reader Mode and then ask Apple Intelligence to create a summary. 
4. Notification Summaries: This feature lets you get the gist of any message or notification you receive without reading it yourself. It will scan the notifications you get and give you a summary of what it thinks you should know. It’s particularly useful when you have a stack of notifications from an ongoing messaging thread. Granted, it’s not as perfect as other features, but it will improve with time.

Features That Are Coming in iOS 18.2

The next iOS 18 software update will add a few more noteworthy features. While we don’t have an exact launch date for iOS 18.2 yet, it’s widely expected that we’ll see it at the beginning of December.

1. Image Playground: This app uses Apple Intelligence to create any illustration or small animation you want. For instance, you can ask for a cat with a birthday cake, and you’ll get a result with different art styles for you to choose from.
2. Genmoji: Similar to Image Playground, Genmoji will let you create a custom emoji with a simple prompt. You can ask for something like a dog riding a bike, and you’ll get exactly that. There will be different art styles as well, so you can choose your favorite.
3. ChatGPT Integration: As we already mentioned, you’ll be able to add ChatGPT support to Siri so you can get the answers you were looking for even if Siri isn’t capable of answering them for you. Siri will ask if you want to use ChatGPT when a query is too complex for it to handle on its own, but you can also send your Siri requests straight to ChatGPT by prefixing them with “Ask ChatGPT,” which will often provide better (and more current) information than what Siri can come up with. ChatGPT will also be available in Writing Tools so you can use it to compose emails, notes, or just about anything else you can think of.
4. Priority Notifications: Your iPhone or Apple device will use Apple Intelligence to determine if a notification is important to you. If it is, you’ll see it at the top of the list in a summary, so you know what the notification is about.
5. Visual Intelligence: Apple revealed this surprise feature during its September Glowtime event, marking it as an iPhone 16 exclusive since it’s tied to the new Camera Control button. With it, you can use the Camera app to get more information about anything you point at. For instance, you can get more information about a restaurant’s menu, the price of a product you see on the street, or the type of breed a dog is.

Apple Intelligence Features that Are Coming in the Future

In addition to these features, Apple promised many other valuable features that we can’t wait to try.

Most significantly, Apple promises that Siri will soon be much smarter. By this, we mean that Siri will be able to understand the context of what’s on your screen or on your iPhone. So if you have some information on your screen, Siri will be able to read it, so you won’t have to explain everything to it. 

It will also be able to get context from the data in other iPhone apps like Mail, Messages, Contacts, and Calendar. This will let it do things like tie together calendar appointments with ongoing text conversations so you can ask more intuitive questions like “What time does my mom’s flight land?”

Where Is Apple Intelligence Available?

At the time of this writing, Apple Intelligence is technically available everywhere except in the European Union (EU) and China. However, it’s only available if you set your language to US English. 

However, Apple promises that it will soon be available in more places and languages. December’s iOS 18.2 release will add English in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.

Apple Intelligence is expected to come to the EU in April 2025 and support additional languages, including English in India and Singapore, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

Which Devices Support Apple Intelligence?

Unfortunately, older devices, especially older iPhones, don’t support Apple Intelligence. Only a handful of iPhones support it, and unless you have one of the newest iPhones, you’re out of luck.

Here are the devices that support Apple Intelligence:

1. The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
2. All iPhone 16 models.
3. All iPads with an M series (Apple silicon) chip.
4. All Macs with an M series (Apple silicon) chip.
5. The iPad mini with the A17 Pro chip.

Based on rumors and speculations, we’re expecting other devices, such as the base iPad and the next iPhone SE, to support Apple Intelligence as well.

Apple Intelligence is Here to Stay

Whether you like it or not, Aplpe Intelligence, and artificial intelligence as a whole, will not go anywhere soon.

The good news is that you probably don’t want it to go away. Apple Intelligence brings a lot of cool and useful features to all your Apple devices. From writing tools to the ability to create any illustration you want with just a sentence, there are a lot of benefits you can get from Apple’s newest technology.

Granted, it’s still far from perfect, and many of us don’t have supported devices to try it out yet. But as Apple Intelligence improves and becomes more available, we’ll get new features we didn’t know we needed.