Apple on Wednesday rolled out the latest developer beta releases of its top operating systems, including iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2. These releases arrive one week before the general availability of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, although Apple has not yet specified a date.
Next week's release will mark the first time Apple Intelligence features are generally available in non-beta form. These include integrated writing tools, image cleanup, article summaries, and typing input for a redesigned Siri experience.
Those of you brave enough to sign up for the developer beta program now will have access to a number of additional Apple Intelligence features announced at the company's annual WWDC event in June. These features include Genmoji, Image Playground, Visual Intelligence, Image Wand, and ChatGPT integration.
If you're new to Apple Intelligence, you must opt in to this feature from Settings. Users will also need to grant permission to enable ChatGPT functionality. Third-party generative AI platforms are integrated in two key ways: by answering questions through Siri and as a composition tool within writing tools.
Siri options appear when your assistant is asked a question that doesn't have an immediate answer. When this happens, the system asks for permission to access OpenAI's platform. Recipes and travel plans are two common features that are likely to trigger this feature.
Compose, on the other hand, is integrated into every app that has access to writing tools (as well as first-party and many third-party apps). As with the standalone ChatGPT platform, the service writes the text as the user types the prompt. These apps also have access to ChatGPT's image generation platform.
Of course, this is in addition to Apple's own image generation. Image Playground is built into Apple apps like Messages, Pages, Keynote, and Freeform (as well as its own standalone apps) and utilizes prompts to generate new images. Prompts include concept, description, and character creation. Users can also use friends and family as prompts or generate images based on their own photos.
Image Playground is trained on licensed content and publicly crawled websites. Publishers have the option to opt out of the latter. Apple's art comes in two main styles: animation and illustration. Both intentionally avoid photo realism, and may be avoiding potential ethical and legal issues that can arise from fake photos.
The Image Wand, on the other hand, allows users to turn their sketches into finished artwork. Handwritten notes can also be made neatly.
Genmoji, launching Wednesday as part of a developer update for iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2, brings the ability to generate original emojis with prompts. These include descriptions, people recognized from photos, and custom characters. These can be used inline in messages, as well as on stickers and tapbacks.
Visual Intelligence is essentially Apple's answer to Google Lens. Accessible through the iPhone 16's camera control button, this feature can scan QR codes, copy and summarize text, discover phone numbers and email addresses (add to contacts), and translate languages. The feature also delivers contextual information for the image in front of it, such as restaurant reviews and opening hours.
Visual Intelligence can also tap into Google's knowledge base for shopping queries and access ChatGPT for information on a variety of subjects.
Users do not need a ChatGPT account to access the platform, but without one your queries will be limited.