Apple Intelligence is coming later this year, as part of iOS 18, and marks Apple’s first major attempt at offering AI features on the iPhone. There are a whole bunch of features coming under the Apple Intelligence banner, but not everything Apple announced at WWDC 2024 will be available right away. In fact some of those features may not launch until next year at the earliest.
Apple hasn’t been entirely open about what features are coming when, however. So those of you that have a compatible iPhone, who are eagerly looking forward to what Apple Intelligence has to offer, should brace yourselves for an incomplete experience when iOS 18 launches this fall.
But how do you know what to expect? Fortunately we’ve done some digging and found out which Apple Intelligence features won’t be available at launch. Here’s what you need to know.
The biggest Siri upgrades
Siri has been in desperate need of an upgrade for a long time, but Apple has pretty much neglected the feature for the past decade or so. Apple Intelligence was the perfect opportunity to give Siri a much needed upgrade, and it means some incredible new features are on the way. Just don’t expect the best ones to launch with Apple Intelligence later this year.
That’s right, you’re going to have to wait before Siri becomes a lot more useful than it currently is. Features like on-screen awareness, the ability to control apps, semantic indexing or personal content won’t be ready until a later date. Mark Gurman at Bloomberg believes that this won’t happen until sometime in 2025.
Thankfully, Siri will still get upgrades thanks to iOS 18, including the new interface and the ability to hold more natural conversations with users. Apple has confirmed Siri will be able to understand you better, and will offer the Type to Siri feature for those times when speaking isn’t an option. While useful this isn’t as impressive as if we’d got everything in one go.
ChatGPT & other chatbots
Mark Gurman also believes that the launch of ChatGPT on iPhone may miss the initial release of iOS 18. However, he points out that language in Apple marketing suggests that it will still arrive before the end of 2024. We’re just going to have to wait and see what happens when iOS 18 launches in September.
Apple did confirm at WWDC that support for more chatbots would be happening — with rumors pointing to Google Gemini and Anthropic support being announced sometime in the fall. Since Apple hasn’t said anything official as of yet, there’s no guarantee that this will happen close to launch — especially if ChatGPT is delayed.
Apple Mail upgrades
Apple Mail will get some useful upgrades with Apple Intelligence, but according to Apple they won’t be available in iOS 18. Instead we’ll have to wait until iOS 18.1 or iOS 18.2 — which should arrive later this year.
The Mail improvements include being able to organize emails into 4 distinct categories automatically. They are Primary, Transactions, Promotions and Updates. Message summaries will also use Apple’s AI to scan the email and summarize the contents — letting you skim your emails more effectively and focus on the important messages.
Potentially very useful if you have a busy inbox, but sadly you’ll have to wait a little longer to try it out.
Support for older devices
One of the biggest issues with Apple Intelligence is that it has some pretty strict hardware requirements. For that reason Apple Intelligence will only be available on iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, and won’t be coming to any older models. Apple has confirmed that they lack the necessary RAM to run on-device AI, so anyone with one of those phones will be missing out forevermore.
Newer phones like the iPhone 16 should have the necessary RAM to power some level of Apple Intelligence going forward. But unless you already have a Pro-series iPhone 15, it means you will be missing out on everything until you upgrade.
Non U.S. English and other languages
Apple is definitely being cautious with the rollout of Apple Intelligence, and it seems that part of that involves limiting functionality to a single language for the start of the rollout. That language, of course, being U.S. English — with fewer Us and more Zs than some people might be comfortable with seeing on a regular basis.
If you’re from the U.K., Australia or any number of other places where English is spoken regularly, you’ll probably be fine in the short term. It’s not ideal, but at least you should be able to understand what Apple Intelligence is up to. Even if some of the words and spelling are different. If you don’t have strong English skills, like billions of people around the world, then you’re straight out of luck.
Sadly we don’t know if and when that might change. Especially since Apple has confirmed Apple Intelligence won’t be coming to the EU, which might have spurred it to add more comprehensive language support a little faster.
Swift Assist
While not the kind of tool consumers might use, Apple is launching an AI-powered coding tool in the form of Swift Assist. Designed to be a companion for coding tasks, this tool has the ability to answer programming questions, help write the code and put development frameworks in place. All so developers can focus on more important things, and ensure they have the “latest code features that blend perfectly into their projects”.
Sadly this may not arrive until later in 2024, rather than when Apple Intelligence and iOS 18 formally launch.
