Over the weekend, we learned that Apple Intelligence, Apple’s brand name for its generative AI features, would not be shipping with iOS 18 after all, but would be coming with iOS 18.1 instead. While Apple won’t officially roll out Apple Intelligence until later this fall, that doesn’t mean these AI features will be gone entirely until then. You can try them out now, with a few major caveats.
Apple Intelligence in 5 minutes
On Monday, Apple dropped the first developer beta for iOS 18.1. This version of the beta is intended for registered developers, allowing them to test the new software with their apps and services and ensure that no critical issues have been identified. It used to cost $99 per year, but in recent years Apple has opened up the developer beta to anyone who is interested, meaning you can install the iOS 18.1 developer beta on your iPhone even if you're not an iOS developer.
A few caveats: Apple Intelligence is only available on iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, or iPads with an M1 chip or later. If you have an iPhone 15 or earlier, or an iPad without the M-series chip, you’re out of luck. Additionally, simply installing the iOS 18.1 beta isn’t enough to get access to Apple Intelligence; the company requires you to first sign up for a waitlist for the service before you can experiment with its AI features. There’s no set amount of time for how long Apple will keep you on the waitlist, and Redditors on r/iosbeta had mixed experiences, with some being approved immediately, while others had to wait as long as 30 minutes.
As you might expect, this version of Apple Intelligence is still in early testing, meaning it won’t include every feature Apple announced earlier this year. While features like Genmoji, Image Playground, and ChatGPT integration aren’t live yet, some key capabilities are. Installing the update will let you try out Apple’s AI writing tools, new AI features in apps like Mail and Photos, and some AI upgrades for Siri.