6 Apple Intelligence features that won’t be available at launch

The official launch of iOS 18 is almost here. The arrival of the new iPhone 16 line-up means that iOS 18 is just around the corner. Typically, when a new iPhone is launched, the new version of iOS is released into the wild about a week or two later, to correspond with the availability of the new iPhone models in stores. Last year, for example, Apple’s launch event for theiPhone 15 took place on September 12, and iOS 17 officially launched on September 18.

The rumors are that the new models of iPhone will be available to buy on September 20 this year, so we should see iOS 18 being released somewhere around that date. However, if you’re getting excited about the launch of iOS 18 because you want to try out the new Apple Intelligence features, you’re going to have a bit of a wait.

Apple Intelligence is highly unlikely to be part of the official iOS 18 launch, with the first Apple Intelligence features likely to be available as part of the iOS 18.1 update which should occur around October. However, even when Apple Intelligence does finally arrive on the iPhone, it may only have a limited set of AI features, such as generative writing tools, the ability to summarize web pages and emails, improved transcription, and smart replies.

Some of the biggest Apple Intelligence features may take even longer to arrive, with Apple keen to make sure that the features are working correctly before they’re released. Here are six of the best features of Apple Intelligence that we’re probably going to have to wait some time for.

1 Image Playground (likely arrival December)

Creating your own images may not arrive until December

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, we won’t be seeing Apple’s new Image Playground feature on iPhones until the release of iOS 18.2. Image Playground is a generative AI tool that allows you to create original images on your iPhone in three different styles: Animation, Illustration, and Sketch. You can type a description of the image you want to create, choose from a range of themes, places, or costumes, and even create an image based on a person from your Photos library. All of the images are created on device within a dedicated app.

Gurman says that the iOS 18.2 update is likely to be released in December, following the release of the iOS 18.1 update around October. We may need to wait until the end of the year before we can start using Image Playground to create amusing images of our friends and family.

2 Genmoji (likely arrival December)

You may need to wait until December for custom emoji

Apple

Another image generation feature that’s part of Apple Intelligence is the Genmoji feature. This is a pretty awful name for something that could be quite useful.Emoji are intended to help us express emotions within text-based messages, since it’s easy to misread the tone of a message and take it a different way to how it’s intended.

On the whole, emojis work well for telling when someone is joking or being sarcastic, but unfortunately, not everyone understands the same emojis in the same way. For example, the seemingly harmless “thumbs up” emoji can be seen as a simple “OK” to some, and a passive-aggressive attack to others. Being able to create your own emoji may go some way to reducing the confusion.

With the Genmoji feature, you’ll be able to type a description of the emoji that you want and see a preview of how the new emoji will look. You can keep tweaking until you have the perfect fit, and as with Image Playground, you can even create Genmoji based on people from your Photos library.

Sadly, it looks like we’ll have to put up with the standard set of emoji for the time being. According to Mark Gurman, Genmoji is another feature that isn’t going to appear until iOS 18.2, meaning that it will probably be December before it arrives.

3 ChatGPT integration into Siri (likely arrival December)

Free access to ChatGPT via Siri should be here by the end of the year

Apple/Pocket-lint

Siri has been around for a long time. Initially a standalone app, Apple made Siri apart of iOS in 2011, as a built-in feature of the iPhone 4S. After the initial excitement at her launch, Siri hassadly stagnated for more than a decade. Other voice assistants have surpassed her abilities, and modern AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini make Siri seem like tech from another era.

Siri is finally getting a much needed update in iOS 18, however, and while her abilities will see a significant boost, she still won’t have the same capabilities as other AI chatbots. Apple is aware that people who have used apps such as Meta AI and Claude are going to expect a similar level of performance from Siri. To this end, Apple has struck a deal with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, to add ChatGPT’s abilities to the iPhone.

When you ask Siri a question, she will try to answer it herself. However, if the question seems beyond her abilities, she will ask you if you would like ChatGPT to help. If you agree, Siri will turn to ChatGPT to answer the question for you. Using ChatGPT in iOS 18 will be free, although if you are a paid ChatGPT user, you can get access to additional features that are part of your subscription.

This collaboration between Siri and ChatGPT promises to make using Siri much more powerful, and make using ChatGPT more accessible, but unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a little while longer. Tim Cook himself confirmed that ChatGPT integration will be integrated into iOS 18 “by the end of the calendar year” so it seems likely that it may arrive as part of iOS 18.2.

4 A more contextual Siri (likely arrival 2025 although may be earlier)

An AI-powered Siri with better understanding may not arrive until next year

Apple

Siri will be able to turn to ChatGPT for help if needed, but she’ll also have a lot of new skills of her own. One of those new skills is the ability to have a greater understanding of personal context, and this truly does have the potential to make Siri significantly more useful.

For example, you’ll be able to ask Siri questions such as “what time does Mom’s flight get in?” and Siri will be able to pull up the flight details that your mom sent you via email. Instead of having to open Mail, search for the right email, then open it and find the appropriate section that contains the flight information, all you’ll need to do is ask Siri, and she’ll provide you with the answer.

This is much more like the personal assistant that Siri promised to be when she first launched, but that never really materialized. It remains to be seen how well this feature works in the real world, but it has the potential to make Siri as useful tool instead of something of a gimmick.

There’s some disagreement about when this feature is likely to arrive. According to Mark Gurman, none of the major Siri features will arrive until next year, and this is something that would seem to fall into that category. However, the Wall Street Journal claims that the ability to tap into personal context will be here before the end of the year.

5 On-screen awareness for Siri (likely arrival 2025)

Siri will be able to take information from your iPhone screen, but not any time soon

Apple/Pocket-lint

Another very useful feature that’s being added to Siri is on-screen awareness. This will give Siri the ability to see what’s currently displayed on your iPhone screen and extract any information that be being displayed.

For example, if someone’s sent you their new address details in Messages , currently you’d need to copy the information from the message, open the Contacts app, find the relevant contact, open that contact for editing, and add the address in the appropriate field. With on-screen awareness, all you need to do is ask Siri to add the address to their contact card. Siri will extract the address information that’s displayed on your iPhone screen, understand the context of who the message is from, and add that new address to the appropriate contact.

This feature is one that most reports seem to agree is unlikely to make an appearance until sometime next year. How soon into 2025 we get access to it remains to be seen.

6 A more deeply integrated Siri (likely arrival 2025)

Siri will be able to have more control over apps but probably not until 2025

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Another very useful feature that will be coming to Siri in iOS 18 is the ability to take action within a wide range of apps. Currently you can use Siri in a limited way with apps, such as asking her to open a specific app, but it’s not possible to have much control of the app’s actions, particularly with third-party apps.

Siri in iOS 18 will eventually be able not only to have deeper control of apps on your iPhone but will also be able to take action across different apps. For example, if you’ve taken a photo, you could ask Siri to “make this photo pop and then add it to my Vacation Ideas note.” Siri would perform the relevant edit in the Photos app (the request to make the photo “pop” is an example pulled directly from Apple’s own website, indicating that Siri will be able to understand quite broad requests) and then automatically add the photo to your note, without you having to open any apps yourself.

This is another feature that we’re probably going to have to wait for, however. It seems likely that deep control across apps via Siri is something that won’t be available until next year.