(NEXSTAR) – iPhone, iPad and Mac users now have access to a free Apple iOS update containing “Apple Intelligence”: a suite of features designed to further incorporate artificial intelligence with the brand’s devices.
“Apple Intelligence unlocks exciting new capabilities that make your iPhone, iPad, and Mac even more helpful and useful, from Writing Tools to help refine your writing, to summarized notifications that surface what’s most important, to the ability to search for almost anything in your photos and videos by simply describing it,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said in a Monday press release.
More specifically, Apple described AI-powered tools that would summarize blocks of text into a “digestible paragraph,” or help users rewrite or proofread their own text, and even adjust the “tone” of their writing for professional or casual correspondence.
Photos and videos, too, can be searched with voice descriptions — and users can even create movies or slideshows simply by describing what they want, according to Apple.
“Using language and image understanding, Apple Intelligence will pick out the best photos and videos based on a user’s description, craft a storyline with chapters based on themes identified from the photos, and arrange them into a movie with its own narrative arc,” the press release claims.
Apple’s update also promises a “more conversational Siri,” which is said to more easily understand language commands, though it will become even “more capable” in the coming months after yet another update, which will allow Siri to “gain onscreen awareness, as well as be able to take hundreds of new actions in and across Apple and third-party apps,” Apple wrote. Apple says, though, that its latest version of Siri is currently capable of helping users who have operational questions related to the very Apple devices they’re using.
Speaking of devices, the iOS 18 update is available only for iPhone 16 models, as well as the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. It’s also available on iPads with A17 Pro chips or M1 chips (or their successors), and Macs with M1 chips (or later versions), according to Apple.
Because most iPhones currently in use around the world don’t have the computer chip needed for Apple’s AI, the technology is expected to drive huge demand for the new models during the holiday season and into next year, too. That’s the main reason why Apple’s stock price has soared 18% since the Cupertino, California, company previewed its AI strategy at a conference in early June. The run-up has increased Apple’s market value by about $500 billion, catapulting it closer to becoming the first U.S. company to be worth $4 trillion.
Apple will give investors their first glimpse at how the iPhone 16 is faring Thursday when the company posts quarterly financial information for the July-September quarter — a period that includes the first few days the new models were on sale.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.