Apple introduced the iPhone 16 as the first iPhone designed with AI in mind. Also, the company’s iPhone 16 marketing focuses heavily on Apple Intelligence. However, the iOS 18 operating system that comes on all four iPhone 16 models does not offer any Apple Intelligence features. In other words, Apple is selling features in its ads that you can’t even use when you take your new iPhone 16 out of the box.
Apple’s AI is still in development, and the only way to get it is to install the iOS 18.1 beta on the iPhone. Even then, you’ll only get some Apple Intelligence rather than the full package.
That said, Apple was upfront about Apple Intelligence when it unveiled the iPhone 16 series. The company said the first features would be available sometime in October as part of a staggered Apple Intelligence rollout. Apple never gave iPhone 16 buyers a release date for the iOS 18.1 update. It turns out iOS 18.1 will need more time, and Apple is now expected to release it on October 28th.
The date comes from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The often-reliable reporter said in his Power On newsletter he obtained the release date for the first batch of Apple Intelligence features. It’s Monday, October 28th, when you’ll be able to download iOS 18.1 on your iPhone 16. As a reminder, iOS 18.1 will also bring Apple Intelligence to the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, which are the only “old” iPhones that can run Apple’s AI.
Apple is supposedly taking its time with the rollout “to ensure that major bugs are eliminated and it can support all the new traffic on its AI cloud servers.”
iOS 18.1 will bring some AI features to the supported iPhones, like notification summaries, a few AI writing tools, web page summaries, and a handful of new Siri features. But you’ll need to wait for iOS 18.2 to get ChatGPT integration and Genmoji emoji.
After that, Apple will supposedly release iOS 18.4 in March with a few additional Apple Intelligence features. The upgrades to Siri that Apple demoed at WWDC, like the ability to control apps or use personal information from the device to answer questions, will not be available before that update.
Gurman also says that features like the Image Playground app for generating AI images and the automated email filing feature in the Mail app will be available sometime after iOS 18.1 is released. It’s unclear how long it will take for these features to arrive.
What Gurman doesn’t say is that the Apple Intelligence rollout above does not apply to a few key markets, but I’ll do it for him. Apple has yet to announce plans to bring Apple Intelligence to Europe and China.
I’m an iPhone 16 owner in Europe who won’t be able to use any of the Apple Intelligence features listed above. The somewhat good news in this might be that I’ll probably get more Apple Intelligence features at once when Apple is ready to roll them out in the region.
Overall, the Apple Intelligence staggered rollout isn’t the best thing that could have happened with Apple’s AI. But it’s probably for the best. Apple is already very late to the AI party, so it should aim to offer the best possible experience.
As for the more distant future, Apple will probably not have to deal with an embarrassing scenario like this again, where it launches a brand-new iPhone and sells it based on features that don’t actually exist yet.
Finally, I’d also expect Apple to eventually match what OpenAI and Google are doing in terms of AI. They release new AI features when they’re ready for the public. Apple should take the same approach once Apple Intelligence is more mature, rather than always waiting for the newest iPhone to be ready.
Back to Gurman’s predictions, the insider said Apple will launch the M4 MacBook Pro and other M4 Macs on November 1st, the same week as the release of iOS 18.1. Apple will also market the new Macs as AI-ready, but it’s unclear whether Apple will hold another press event for the next line of products.
