With iOS 18 now available, Apple is ramping up iOS 18.1 beta development to deliver some of its promised Apple Intelligence features later next month. After beta 4, anyone running iOS 18 can take advantage of this beta. However, Apple Intelligence functions are still only available for iPhone 15 Pro, M1 iPad, and M1 Mac or newer.
In this article, we are sharing what’s changing with every iOS 18.1 beta.
iOS 18.1 beta 1 features
Writing Tools: Proofread your text, rewrite different versions until the tone and wording are right, and summarize the selected text with a tap.
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.
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.
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.
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.
iOS 18.1 beta 2 features
A couple of weeks after seeding iOS 18.1 beta 1, Apple seeded beta 2. Although it doesn’t bring new Apple Intelligence features, Apple adds tweaks from the iOS 18 beta 5 and 6:
Photos app: Apple has removed the Carousel from the Photos app. The company has also tweaked the “All Photos” section, with more images appearing on the photos grid. The “Recent Days” tab also includes “Recently Saved.”
Distraction Control: Safari gets a new Distraction Control feature. In the Reader toggle, you can find a new “Hide Distracting Items.” Apple says this doesn’t work as an ad blocker, but it helps hide distractful items from a page.
Control Center: Apple added new toggles to the Control Center, including an exclusive Bluetooth icon and a new Capture section.
Apple Music changes: The Browse tab is now called “New.”
iOS 18.1 beta 3 features
With this beta, Apple keeps expanding Apple Intelligence features:
Clean Up: This Photos app feature can identify and remove distracting objects in the background of a photo without accidentally altering the subject.
Summarization: Apple Intelligence can now summarize more than just Messages and Mail notifications.
iOS 18.1 beta 4 features
A few weeks after the previous beta, and with the official release of iOS 18, Apple made available iOS 18.1 beta 4.
This testing version adds a few lacking features of the iOS 18 RC version, such as watchOS 11’s exclusive watch faces. Besides that, this build adds the following functions:
Spatial photos support on iPhone 15 Pro: This beta allows iPhone 15 Pro users to finally take Spatial Photos.
Record calls: All iOS 18 iPhone models can record calls directly within the Phone app. Still, an iPhone 15 Pro is required to summarize a recording.
Type to Siri: The type-to-Siri function has improved for Apple Intelligence devices, as the assistant tries to complete the user’s queries.
Wrap up
This is everything new coming to the iOS 18.1 beta so far. BGR will keep following this testing cycle, and we’ll update this article as we learn more about new Apple Intelligence features, including how to test them already.
