Apple Expands AI Features in Latest iOS 18.1 Beta

Everything new in Apple's third round of developer betas

Apple has released its third round of developer betas for 2024, which include new Apple Intelligence features On Wednesday, Apple released the third developer betas of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. Here's everything you need to know about the updates and features they add. Apple's latest round of developer betas introduces support for two key Apple Intelligence features -- a new Clean Up tool for the Photos app, and an option for notification summarization. Both of these features were officially previewed at WWDC in June but have only now been made available to beta testers. It's worth pointing out, however, that both of these features -- notification summarization as well as the new Clean Up tool -- are only available on devices that support Apple Intelligence. This means that an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, an iPad or Mac with an M1 or newer chip is required to use any AI-related features. The Clean Up feature, available within the Photos app, lets users remove unwanted objects from images through the use of Apple's on-device generative AI software. Users can tap, circle, or brush an unwanted object to make it disappear from a photo. Apple's AI software can automatically detect potentially unwanted objects and highlight them. Tapping the undesired object will remove it from a photo. Alternatively, it is also possible to circle or brush objects that are not automatically identified by Apple's generative AI. By selecting an object this way, it's possible to fully or partially remove it from an image. Apple's AI software fills in the remaining area of the image, making it as though the undesired object was never even there. Even so, images altered with the feature are clearly labeled as edited with Clean Up for added convenience. It is also possible to undo any changes and revert the image to its initial, unaltered state. AppleInsider first broke the news on Apple's Clean Up feature through an exclusive report, published more than a month before the feature was announced at WWDC. Also present in Apple's third assortment of developer betas is an all-new notification summarization feature. While summarization was available for the default Mail and Messages apps in earlier versions of iOS 18.1 beta, the company's latest release expands support to even more applications. Apple has added a new setup screen that gives users the option to decide which apps should use notification summarization, if any. The feature can be enabled for system apps as well as third-party applications. Users can also update their preferences after the fact by navigating to System Settings > Notifications > Summarize Previews. Here, users can enable or disable the feature and select which apps will use notification summarization. The new feature leverages Apple's on-device AI and uses it to create summaries of notifications. Notifications and groups of notifications will be boiled down to essential data points, meaning that users will have easy access to key notification details. Through Apple Intelligence, users will be able to receive a synopsis of their recent messages and conversations, emails, news articles, and much more. These summaries are displayed on the Lock Screen. As with the Clean Up tool, AppleInsider first detailed Apple's summarization features in the months ahead of release. This was done through our reports on Project Blackpearl, Project GreyMatter, and the Ajax LLM. While the Clean Up tool and notification summarization are available across all of Apple's platforms, macOS Sequoia has received a system-specific upgrade. The third developer beta of macOS Sequoia 15.1, the App Store, will let users install applications directly to an external drive. When this setting is enabled, macOS automatically installs App Store applications larger than a gigabyte onto an external drive, assuming one is plugged in. As reported by 9to5mac, the setting only affects applications larger than a gigabyte. Apps with a smaller file size are installed directly onto the internal drive. This feature could prove particularly useful for owners of Mac computers with a lower storage capacity, such as 256GB. macOS Sequoia also removes certain requirements related to app installation. On earlier versions of macOS, users needed to have free space that was equal to twice the size of an application. This is no longer the case starting with macOS Sequoia. As a whole, macOS Sequoia brings with it a whole host of innovative features, from Safari Highlights to Math Notes in the Calculator app. macOS Sequoia, along with iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 will be available to all users in the Fall of 2024, while Apple Intelligence features will be available through a later update.

New iOS 18.1 beta adds more Apple Intelligence features -- here's what's available on the iPhone

A new batch of Apple Intelligence features is heading to the iPhone -- or at least, it's heading to iPhones that are running a developer beta of Apple's upcoming software release. iOS 18.1 beta 3 can be downloaded today (August 28), just a week after the last beta's arrival. As a reminder, this isn't the iOS 18 public beta available to a wider audience. Apple is letting people test its new AI-powered features separately, suggesting that Apple Intelligence won't go live with the rest of iOS 18; instead, we're anticipating the launch of the first Apple Intelligence features in a subsequent iOS 18.1 release later this year. The new beta -- build number 22B5034e if you track these things -- adds several new features designed to give us a little taste of what Apple's version of on-device AI can do. Perhaps the most notable new feature is Clean Up in Photos. This smart image editing tool sounds similar to Google's Magic Eraser feature in that it identifies and removes distracting objects in the background of a photo without altering the main subject. In addition, notification summaries -- previously available for just Messages and Mail -- have been extended to all apps. That means notifications showing up on the lock screen of your iPhone will call out the key details so you can get the gist of the notification at a glance. These features are in addition to those already rolled out in Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1 beta 1 and beta 2. Features like Writing Tools, the improved Siri, Apple Intelligence in Mail and some tweaks to Photos are already available for testing. We expect more new goodies to be added before any of these features see a public release later in 2024. We tried some of the iOS 18.1 features on an iPhone 15 Pro and found that Apple Intelligence is off to a good start with plenty of room for fine-tuning -- which you would certainly expect from a beta release. Apple is playing catch-up to AI offerings like ChatGPT and Google Gemini, so it's no surprise that those offerings are further along. (ChatGPT will be included with Apple's push into AI, though it's not included in these betas.) The new features and additions to existing ones offered in beta 3 are a step in that direction. Still, I'm personally more excited to see how Apple Intelligence's total package comes together when it is released to the public and updated well into 2025. While the iOS 18.1 targets developers, anyone who registers with Apple's developer website can download the beta for free. You will need an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max to experience Apple Intelligence, though. In addition to the iOS beta, Apple also released new Apple Intelligence betas for the iPad (iPadOS 18.1) and the Mac (macOS 15.1).

iOS 18.1 beta 3 brings Apple Intelligence notification summaries to all apps

Today Apple released beta 3 for iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. These updates include some key new Apple Intelligence capabilities not available in previous betas. One such addition brings an expansion of what may be the killer Apple Intelligence feature: notification summaries. In previous versions of iOS 18.1, notification summaries were available for two Apple apps: Despite being limited to just two apps, these Apple Intelligence summaries were the biggest difference maker for me in my daily use. Now, in today's beta 3, notification summaries can be used for any app on your device. This includes more of Apple's own system apps, but also -- crucially -- third-party apps too. Summaries will use AI to intelligently capture the contents of a given message, email, news headline, or the like. It will then deliver that summary in a notification, which in my use has made notifications far more helpful than before. After installing beta 3, your device will provide a setup walkthrough that asks whether you'd like to enable notification summaries for all your apps or not. But whatever your selection, inside of Settings ⇾ Notifications ⇾ Summarize Previews, you can optionally turn summaries on and off for individual apps. So if there are certain notifications you prefer summaries for, while others you'd like the standard notification content, you can pick and choose on a per-app basis. As I've written previously, notification summaries have been my favorite Apple Intelligence feature so far. I'm thrilled to see them come to more apps today. Apple Intelligence is still in beta, so the summaries understandably haven't always been entirely accurate. Once, my brother messaged me about his baby son, and Apple's summary referred to his 'daughter.' But for the most part, notification summaries have been a truly valuable addition across my iPhone, iPad, and even my Apple Watch. What do you think of Apple Intelligence summaries? Have you found them useful? Let us know in the comments.