Apple Unveils Apple Intelligence, iOS 18, and MacOS 15 Sequoia

Apple’s much anticipated Apple Intelligence preview was the event’s biggest highlight. The advanced features will make Apple devices more powerful, personalized, and “delightful,” the company says. They will be integrated across the company’s ecosystem—powering everything from a more useful Siri, to advanced search capabilities, to a personal editor that can help revise emails in different tones.

Throughout the presentation, Apple emphasized the security and privacy precautions it has taken to protect personal data, noting Apple Intelligence’s reliance on both on-device processing and cloud computing that requires no data storage or data access by Apple. The highlights:

Siri Gets a Useful Overhaul: Apple Intelligence will make your trusty iPhone assistant much more capable of answering complex questions and completing multistep tasks, Apple says, including those that require Siri to sift through various Apple services and even third-party apps. 

Siri will soon be able to pull up the podcast your friend recommended via text a few days back or estimate the time it will take your mom to get into town, retrieving relevant flight information from an email, finding real-time flight tracking, and calculating the travel time from the airport by car—all with a single voice command. You’ll also be able to give the digital assistant instructions via text. This smarter Siri is possible in part because of a partnership with OpenAI that allows Siri to harness ChatGPT in certain situations, with your permission. 

Enhanced Photo Editing and Searching: Generative AI photo editing will soon have the power to remove unwanted parts of an image from right within the Photos app—similar to features that already exist on the latest phones from Samsung and Google. The redesigned app offers enhanced search functionality—like the ability to locate a specific moment in a video clip, Apple says. It also allows you to create more personalized photo collections, say, gathering shots you took hiking with a specific friend on a recent vacation, or quick video montages featuring your own photos and coherent narrative arcs.

AI-Generated Images: This one might not be groundbreaking, but it’s pretty fun. Apple Intelligence will help you create custom images or emojis—named a “Genmoji”—on the fly, based on instructions you provide. It can handle left-field requests, like "T-Rex riding a surfboard." The company’s new Image Playground also gives you ways to generate animated portraits of people you know, using theme words and snapshots from your photo archive. Feed it "New York City," "pizza," and "Mom," for example, to entertain the group chat with a lively rendering of your mom eating a New York slice.

In addition to Apple Intelligence, the new iOS 18 software upgrade will serve up more ways to personalize your phone and advanced privacy protections—like the ability to set up a password to access certain apps. The iPhone operating system will launch in beta for the public later this summer and roll out to all users in the fall. Here are the highlights.

Faster Way to Pay Friends and Family: Apple Pay is expanding with Tap-to-Cash functionality that allows iPhone users to exchange Apple Cash by lightly tapping their phones together—like with the AirDrop feature—and without having to exchange phone numbers. That will make it easier to, say, quickly split the bill after dinner.

A More Customizable Home Screen and Control Center: iOS 18 allows for more freedom in organizing the apps on your Home screen and selecting the actions in Control Center. Instead of lining the apps up in a grid, you can shift them around to better accommodate the image you chose for your home screen’s wallpaper. You can even change the color of the app icons or turn them to “Dark Mode” to better accent the image. 

Likewise, you can curate the functions in your phone’s Control Center, which is now accessible by swiping a finger down from the top right of the screen. Third-party developers will also be able to offer controls for their apps here. This means faster access to the actions you use most.

More Privacy With Locked and Hidden Apps: For a bit more peace of mind, iOS 18 allows you to require FaceID or a passcode to unlock certain apps on your phone. It will also allow you to tuck certain apps away in a hidden folder.

Texting Just Got More Fun: Other iOS 18 updates to messaging include the ability to format texts with bold, italics, underlining, or cross-through and add effects, like “shake” or “ripple,” to specific words and phrases. You can also react to messages with any emoji—including your custom “Genmojis”—rather than the fairly limited options now, like thumbs-up or heart. And this update might be more convenient than fun, but iOS 18 will also allow you to schedule texts in advance.

Improved Apple-to-Android Texting: Apple also shared that RCS messaging support is coming to iPhones—an upgrade that’s been highly requested for years. That likely means you’ll be able to share better quality photos and videos and "like" or "heart" Android texts, the same way you can iMessages. No word on whether Android’s green bubbles are going away, though.

Apple Intelligence features will pop up in other devices, too, including Mac computers and iPads. Here are a few other cool operating system updates announced during the event. 

At Long Last, an iPad Calculator: For the first time, iPadOS 18 offers a built-in calculator for iPads. You can also use Math Notes to write out equations by hand with your Apple Pencil and have the new calculator solve them. 

Access Your iPhone via Your Mac: Is your iPhone sitting far across your room—but you’re comfy on the couch with your MacBook? You can now see and use your iPhone on your computer, using iPhone mirroring on MacOS 15 Sequoia. Your iPhone’s screen pops up directly on your computer screen, allowing you to take action within your iPhone apps, while your actual iPhone remains locked.

New Health Features for Apple Watch: Apple Watch wearers will get new ways to monitor their training. With WatchOS 11, an Apple Watch will analyze the intensity of each workout with scored 1 to 10 effort ratings and analyze your performance over time. And a new Vitals App will give users a quicker look at health metrics and send alerts about potentially concerning anomalies.