Apple Intelligence finally available: Features, supported devices and more

Apple has been pushing Apple Intelligence suite for months now, even advertising its new iPhone 16 series as devices “built from the ground up for Apple Intelligence”. However, the AI features have not been available unless you were on an early-access version of iOS. That changes now, and iPhone users can finally use Apple Intelligence.

Here’s all you need to know, including new features, supported devices, supported languages and how you can enable Apple Intelligence on your phone.

Apple Intelligence: What’s new?

With the iOS 18.1 update, Apple Intelligence, or what we like to call the first phase of Apple Intelligence, is live on supported devices. Here’s a look at the new features.

System-wide Writing Tools

You can now use the Writing Tools feature on Messages, WhatsApp, Instagram, and pretty much any app where the keyboard can open up. The Writing Tools section has multiple options that let you adjust tonality, proofread your message and even tabulate text into pointers.

More conversational Siri

Thanks to the power of AI, Siri on iPhones has now become more powerful. The voice assistant can now follow along when you stumble while talking, reply in a better, more contextual manner to almost anything, and even be used with text instead of voice.

ALSO READ: How to install iOS 18.1 on your iPhone

For those new to iOS, Siri can also answer several questions about using an iPhone, including how to take a screenshot or share a Wi-Fi password.

Natural language search for Photos

The Photos app received a big redesign with iOS 18. With the new update however, the app gets smarter, and now allows you to use contextual search. This allows users to search for things like “Maya skateboarding in a tie-dye shirt,” and the right photos/videos will show up. In videos, the feature can also be used to search for the specific segment when a particular action is taking place.

Notification summaries

Apple Intelligence helps users prioritise key notifications by using AI-powered summaries that will take multiple notifications and give you a one-line gist of what’s going on. This allows you to quickly understand what is going on, say in a group chat, before you even enter the chat window.

In the Mail app, users also automatically see intelligently picked priority emails on the top, and can now use Smart Reply for quick responses to mails.

Call recording with summarisation

Call recording is a standard iOS 18.1 feature that you can use without Apple Intelligence, but on devices that support it, it gets even better. This is because users can not just record, but also transcribe calls and summarise audio at the end of a call.

Apple also teased that more features will come in December, including Genmoji, Image Playground and Image Wand.

Supported devices and languages

Apple Intelligence is available on all the iPhone 16 variants, as well as the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. Other iPhones in the 15 series, as well as older iPhones will not support the features.

Apart from this, Apple Intelligence will also be supported on any Mac, iMac, or MacBook that is powered by an M-series processor (including iPads powered by the A17 Pro or later, or an M-series chip).

Note that Apple Intelligence currently only supports English-US and is yet to support English-UK, which is the standard English format used in most of India. Apple has mentioned that support for English-UK will come in December, while English-India and some other localised English variants will come later in 2025.

How to enable Apple Intelligence on your iPhone

To enable Apple Intelligence, head over to the Settings app and go to Apple Intelligence & Siri. Here, you should find the toggle to turn the features on, as well as some other options.

If your language is not English-US, but you still want to try the new features, you can also change your language. Go to the Settings app and head to General/ Language and Region/ Add language and choose English US. Give your phone a moment to switch languages and then head back to the Apple Intelligence & Siri page. You should now see a ‘Turn on Apple Intelligence’ button.

That was everything you need to know about Apple Intelligence on iPhones. Stay tuned to Unboxed by Croma for more in-depth guides and all things tech.