In a move that shouldn’t surprise anyone, Apple Intelligence will not be ready for iOS 18. Instead, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that we’ll have to wait until iOS 18.1 to take advantage of Apple’s suite of AI features. Specifically, we can expect Apple Intelligence to arrive sometime in October, a few weeks after the iPhone 16 launches. As a frame of reference, Apple’s iPhone 15 launched on September 22 of 2023, with iOS 17.1 dropping on October 25th. A similar timeline is to be expected this year.
It’s unfortunate that the public will have to wait a few weeks for some of iOS 18’s snazzier features, but developers will reportedly get access to Apple Intelligence features with a new iOS 18 developer beta sometime this week. The delayed rollout of Apple Intelligence will provide the company with more time to iron out bugs and ensure a smooth rollout at launch.
So what Apple Intelligence features will be available when the iPhone 16 arrives? Unfortunately, the list isn’t extensive and includes features like on-device indexing based on data from emails and apps, genmojis, tighter Siri integration with applications, and the ability for Siri to glean pertinent information from items like photos, calendar events, and text messages.
More intriguing Apple Intelligence features, like Chat GPT integration, will either arrive at the end of 2024 or, in some instances, a few months into 2025.
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How Apple will implement ChatGPT on the iPhone
On a related note, it’s worth mentioning that ChatGPT integration with Siri won’t be turned on by default. Rather, users will have to proactively toggle the feature on. Additionally, users will not need a ChatGPT account to use the service. According to reports, neither Apple nor OpenAI exchanged any money on the partnership because each has something to gain from the other. Apple believes the tight integration will provide more value to users and perhaps spur upgrades. OpenAI, meanwhile, believes Apple’s massive user base will drive more ChatGPT subscriptions once users get a taste of generative AI.
While the implementation of ChatGPT remains to be seen, early reports suggest that it will not be running in the background. Rather, users will be prompted with an alert every time certain queries are made, as illustrated by the photo below.
Siri will pass information to ChatGPT with your permission. Image source: Apple Inc.
Incidentally, Apple’s share price has been on a rampage as of late. This is largely due to the belief that Apple Intelligence will spearhead an upgrade supercycle.
What devices can run Apple Intelligence?
Apple typically makes sure that its latest features run on older iPhone models. But Apple Intelligence is different.
According to Apple, only the iPhone 15 Pro models and above will be able to run Apple Intelligence. As for the iPad, only the M1 iPad Pro, M1 iPad Air, and later models can take advantage of Apple Intelligence. Similarly, only M1 Macs and above will be able to run Apple Intelligence. These requirements are likely due to memory issues and to ensure that the features run smoothly and don’t bog down a device.
To this end, Apple executive John Giannandrea said the following during an appearance on John Gruber’s Talk Show Live:
The inference of large language models is incredibly computationally expensive. It’s a combination of bandwidth in the device. It’s the size of the ANE and it’s the oomph in the device to actually do these models fast enough to be useful. You could, in theory, run these models on a very old device. But it would be so slow it would not be useful.