A new batch of Apple Intelligence features is heading to the iPhone — or at least, it's heading to iPhones that are running a developer beta of Apple's upcoming software release. iOS 18.1 beta 3 can be downloaded today (August 28), just a week after the last beta's arrival.
As a reminder, this isn't the iOS 18 public beta available to a wider audience. Apple is letting people test its new AI-powered features separately, suggesting that Apple Intelligence won't go live with the rest of iOS 18; instead, we're anticipating the launch of the first Apple Intelligence features in a subsequent iOS 18.1 release later this year.
The new beta — build number 22B5034e if you track these things — adds several new features designed to give us a little taste of what Apple's version of on-device AI can do. Perhaps the most notable new feature is Clean Up in Photos. This smart image editing tool sounds similar to Google's Magic Eraser feature in that it identifies and removes distracting objects in the background of a photo without altering the main subject.
In addition, notification summaries — previously available for just Messages and Mail — have been extended to all apps. That means notifications showing up on the lock screen of your iPhone will call out the key details so you can get the gist of the notification at a glance.
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These features are in addition to those already rolled out in Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1 beta 1 and beta 2. Features like Writing Tools, the improved Siri, Apple Intelligence in Mail and some tweaks to Photos are already available for testing. We expect more new goodies to be added before any of these features see a public release later in 2024.
We tried some of the iOS 18.1 features on an iPhone 15 Pro and found that Apple Intelligence is off to a good start with plenty of room for fine-tuning — which you would certainly expect from a beta release. Apple is playing catch-up to AI offerings like ChatGPT and Google Gemini, so it's no surprise that those offerings are further along. (ChatGPT will be included with Apple's push into AI, though it's not included in these betas.)
The new features and additions to existing ones offered in beta 3 are a step in that direction. Still, I'm personally more excited to see how Apple Intelligence's total package comes together when it is released to the public and updated well into 2025.
While the iOS 18.1 targets developers, anyone who registers with Apple's developer website can download the beta for free. You will need an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max to experience Apple Intelligence, though.
In addition to the iOS beta, Apple also released new Apple Intelligence betas for the iPad (iPadOS 18.1) and the Mac (macOS 15.1).
