iOS 18.1 iPhone Update: Release Date Confirmed, iOS 18.2 Beta Live

Apple Intelligence is almost here and Apple has just confirmed exactly when. We already knew it was some time in October and now Apple has said it will be next week. And Apple has just put the first developer beta of iOS 18.2 live.

iOS 18.1 Release Date

Next week means Monday, Oct. 28, Tuesday, Oct. 29 or Wednesday, Oct. 30. My belief is that the exact release details will be 10 a.m. Pacific on Oct. 28.

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iOS 18.1: The First Taste Of Apple Intelligence

The first features of Apple’s personal intelligence system are almost here. There’s more to come over the next few months but initial features include writing tools to let you improve what you’ve written. You can proofread your text, and the iPhone can rewrite or summarize what you’ve said. These tools are available across the iPhone, including in Mail, Notes, Pages and in some third-party apps.

Photos has a new clean-up tool which can remove people and things spoiling your shot, and uses multiple machine learning tools to leave the background pristine, like they were never there.

You can already record and transcribe audio, but with iOS 18.1, the capability to record phone calls is added, complete with automatic notifications to participants. A summary is also generated after the call ends.

Siri gains a new design that looks somehow more central to the iPhone experience and will offer a more intuitive interaction.

At first, Apple Intelligence on iPhone will only work with devices with language and Siri set to U.S. English. But Apple has now released a developer beta which will extend this to other versions of English.

iOS 18.2 Developer Beta Now Live

The new dev beta of iOS 18.2 has just gone live and it allows more English speakers to use Apple Intelligence, specifically English for Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and the U.K.

It also introduces a lot more features, plus refinements to the existing writing tools—you can specify what you’re looking for with a “Describe your change” element.

New features include Image Playground, which lets you create images from a picture in your photo library. You can save these to a new standalone app which will update automatically across devices on the same Apple account.

And iOS 18.2 sees the arrival of the much-anticipated Genmoji to create all-new emoji with just a text prompt. There’s also the first sight of integration with ChatGPT. If Siri thinks ChatGPT could help, it’ll ask if you’d like to be connected to it. Apple has stressed the security protections it has put in place for each request and no ChatGPT account is needed. Visual Intelligence, which integrates with the iPhone’s Camera Control is also in the new beta.

Apple iOS 18.2 will go on general release in December, Apple has confirmed.

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