Apple Intelligence rolls out in developer beta with a smarter Siri

Apple has had an eventful couple of months with the iPhone 16 series launching and the release of its landmark iOS 18 update. However, after the announcement of Apple Intelligence in June 2024, fans worldwide have eagerly awaited to test the brand’s take on artificial intelligence.

And while the company has rolled out the fourth developer beta for iOS 18.1 to check, refine and upgrade the system, it has finally unveiled the public beta version of its update with Apple Intelligence features for eligible iPhones. Here’s everything you need to know.

Apple Intelligence: Siri gets smarter

Gone are the days when Siri appeared as a glowing orb on your screen. With the iPhone 16 series launch, Siri gets a glowing overhaul. Siri will now illuminate the borders of the smartphone in a way that won’t obscure text.

ALSO READ: What is Apple Intelligence, Apple’s very own take on AI?

Siri, Apple’s smart voice assistant, will now understand you better when you trip over your words. In case you do not wish to speak out loud to the assistant, you can even type your queries out to Siri. In addition to that, the feature will also provide live suggestions while typing to improve user interaction.

Users can further ask Siri to help them with how to carry out a variety of different on-device tasks themselves. And lastly, Siri will be able to help with the process instead of prompting users to surf the internet to figure it out themselves.

Apple Intelligence: Other features to look out for

Apple will also introduce Writing Tools which comes integrated with generative AI features to help users with proofreading and summarising tasks. Apple Intelligence will also be able to rewrite text in a variety of styles, including professional, concise, as well as friendly. Apart from these, In Mail, Smart Reply, message prioritisation and summaries are also some of the features that will be available with this update.

Other features also include Clean Up for the Photos app, wherein a user can circle an object with their finger for the tool to remove it. Much like Google’s Magic Eraser, the tool will generate a background over the circled part and clean the image up for you.

Apple Intelligence: Availability

Apple Intelligence features are currently only available for beta users with eligible iPhones. If you wish to join the public beta programs, you can visit beta.apple.com to sign up. However, bear in mind that updating to beta could potentially come with glitches and it is always a good idea to wait for a stable version.

You can also manually enable the feature on your iPhone by going to the Settings app, and selecting Apple Intelligence and Siri to join the waitlist for Apple Intelligence.

Along with the newly unveiled iPhone 16 series, only the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max will be able to access Apple Intelligence. To begin with, Apple Intelligence will only be available in US English. That said, it is set to expand to other regions soon. For more tech updates and launches, don’t forget to subscribe to Unboxed by Croma.