This week, Apple released the first beta version of iOS 18.1 for developers, which received some features of the artificial intelligence Apple Intelligence. In their current form, some of them already seem useful, writes The Verge, but the most important ones will debut later – and the main one promises to be a radically smarter voice assistant Siri.
A major update to Siri AI will be released only in a few months – the AI assistant will learn to understand what is on the screen and will be able to perform actions on behalf of the user. For now, Apple has limited itself to small changes: speech recognition has improved, the assistant has become better at understanding natural language and now allows the user to stutter, and the ability to have a dialogue in text format has appeared. When Siri is active, the edges of the phone screen are illuminated, but the assistant’s capabilities are currently mainly limited to turning to Google to search for information.
Text and Mail Enhancements
The most important innovations concern working with text. The previously existing voice recording transcription function in Notes has become much smarter: for example, Apple Intelligence breaks down a person’s speech into semantic units and can make lists — this is useful, for example, when listing things that the user wants to take with them on a trip. In one case, the AI even made a table. Text tools, including writing, editing, and preparing summaries, are unobtrusive, and the user can freely skip them, adds NIX Solutions.
In Mail, the changes are more noticeable. The main page of the application now has a block that displays emails that the AI considers the most important — as practice has shown, they are really important. The main list of incoming emails shows not the first lines of incoming emails, but their text summaries. Most often, this innovation turns out to be really useful, and in the worst case — simply harmless. The summaries of advertising emails seemed a bit funny.
Photos and Future Developments
The Photos app now supports natural language search queries — the AI actually finds photos from the gallery by description, although it sometimes fails and offers something unnecessary. It is likely that in the future, the function will be constantly used in everyday life, since it works intuitively simply.
As these features continue to evolve and improve, we’ll keep you updated on any new developments or changes in the iOS 18.1 beta. The full release of iOS 18.1 is expected to bring even more AI-powered enhancements, particularly to Siri’s functionality. While the current beta version offers a glimpse into Apple’s AI ambitions, it’s clear that the company is taking a measured approach to integrating these new features into its ecosystem.