In a rare movement, Apple is simultaneously testing iOS 18 and iOS 18.1. The latter is only available for iPhone 15 Pro users and offers Apple Intelligence features. That said, the company has finally seeded iOS 18.1 beta 2 with features first available with iOS 18 beta 5.
The first one made the news as the Thanos snap feature. Actually called “Distraction Control,” it’s available in the Reader toggle in Safari and lets you hide distracting items, such as cookie pop-ups and other parts of the website. Apple says this doesn’t work as an ad blocker, but it helps hide distractful items from a page.
Based on user feedback, Cupertino has also removed the Carousel from the Photos app and tweaked the “All Photos” section, with more images appearing on the photos grid. The “Recent Days” tab also includes “Recently Saved.”
Besides that, iOS 18.1 beta 2 continues to improve Apple Intelligence features. These are some of the functions available with this beta:
- Writing Tools: Users can rewrite, proofread, and summarize text nearly everywhere they write, including Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps
- Improved Siri: With a new design, Siri can maintain context between requests. Even if you stumble over words or shift what you’re saying mid-sentence, Siri can understand what you actually want.
- Priority notifications: They appear at the top of the stack, letting you know what to pay attention to at a glance. Notifications are summarized, so you can scan them faster.
- Priority messages in Mail: Elevate time-sensitive messages to the top of your inbox, like an invitation that has a deadline today or a check-in reminder for your flight this afternoon.
- Reduce interruptions: With iOS 18.1 beta 1, an all-new Focus Mode understands the content of your notifications and shows you the ones that might need immediate attention, like a text about picking up your child from daycare later today.
- Email summarization: Tap to reveal a summary of a long email in the Mail app and cut to the chase.
- Record and transcribe calls in the Notes app: Just hit record in the Notes or Phone apps to capture audio recordings and transcripts. Apple Intelligence generates summaries of your transcripts, so you can get to the most important information at a glance.
- Smart Reply in Mail: Quickly draft an email response with all the right details. Apple Intelligence can identify the question you were asked in an email and offer relevant selections to include in your response.
BGR will let you know once we learn more about what’s new with iOS 18.1 beta 2. Alongside this version, Apple is also releasing the second beta version of iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1 to developers.
