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Welcome, Apple Intelligence!

Welcome, Apple Intelligence!

it's just the beginning.

Brandon Butch
August 02, 2024 • 📖 Read time: 12 minutes

Welcome back!🍎
Here’s the latest with Apple.

Apple Intelligence is blowing me away!
New iPhone 16 spoilers
Software updates galore
& more

📖 Read time: 4 minutes

📊 Poll

Last week, I asked: Do you use Apple Maps?

Here are some of my favorite replies:

Yes - “I’ve used Apple Maps exclusively since its release in iOS 6; even before its release, I was already using a “Google Maps alternative”, HopStop (which Apple purchased) for about two years. Luckily, I didn’t have any of the initial Apple Maps nightmares. So, even though it wasn’t as fully-featured as Google Maps, I still enjoyed the fresh UI (Google Maps has never been visually appealing to me, it’s very cluttered) and the reliable turn-by-turn navigation. I still feel turn-by-turn navigation is much better than Google’s [i.e.: telling a driver to “turn right at the next stop sign” just makes much more sense than “turn right in 500ft.” You shouldn’t have to use more brain power than necessary while driving.”

No - “Waze is the way to go. After using it for features like car symbol customization, audible alerts for cops and hazards, and custom voices, I won’t go back. Now when my wife plugs her phone into my car and Apple Maps come up I just think it looks boring! I use Apple Maps to explore areas virtually, but actual directions are from Waze always.”

This week: Do you think Apple should make the “Pro” iPhones more colorful (instead of muted, dark colors)? Why or why not?

Should the "Pro" iPhones be more colorful?

🗞️ The Latest

⚙️ Welcome, Apple Intelligence!

Apple Intelligence has finally arrived for Beta testing and it’s even better than I imagined! Here’s the scoop.

iOS 18.1 & macOS 15.1 Beta 1 were released earlier this week and it contains something I’ve never seen from Apple before: A waitlist!
Once you go through the waitlist, your iPhone/Mac downloads the AI models over the air & you can then access the AI features.
Although not every Apple Intelligence feature is included in Beta 1, several are. Here’s why they’re useful:

Mail & Messages

Email preview text now shows a summary of the email before opening it.
There’s a new Priority section at the top of Mail. This brings attention to important emails so you don’t miss them.
If you have multiple notifications for Mail or Messages, they’ll now be summarized.
Smart Reply allows you to generate a response to an email or message.
You can summarize an email with a tap.
More details can be seen here.

Writing Tools

Apple Intelligence allows you to proofread any body of text you select! It’s not as good as Grammarly (yet) but it’s handy.
If you’re unsure what to write or how to improve your text, simply press Rewrite to receive a fresh version generated by Apple Intelligence.
You can also adjust the tone of your text with options like Friendly, Professional, or Concise.
You can summarize your text into key points and have the option to organize the selected text into a list or table.

Siri

There’s a gorgeous new Siri UI & you can access Type to Siri with a double-tap of the bottom bar.
Siri has improved contextual understanding. For example, if you ask for directions to a city and then ask for the restaurants nearby, Siri will understand you’re referring to that city without repeating it.
Apple's product knowledge and support base are now integrated, so you can ask questions about your device and get answers without being directed to Safari.
The full Siri 2.0 is not active yet, so Siri is only slightly smarter with Beta 1.

Phone Call Recording

Apple Intelligence can also record phone calls and auto-transcribe them in the Notes application!
When you start recording, the person on the other end will hear an audible alert indicating that the call is being recorded.
The audio quality is excellent and everything loads/transcribes instantly.

Other Details

There are other features such as a new Focus mode, AI-generated memories in Photos, Summaries of webpages in Safari, and more. Here’s my video covering every change so far.
Apple did not use Nvidia GPUs to train their AI models, they used Google Tensor chips.
Apple Intelligence will be included in the iOS 18.1 update, coming in October.
These AI features will only be available for the iPhone 15 Pro & Pro Max, along with the iPhone 16 series. Meanwhile, an M1 chip is required for the Mac and iPad.
It’s only available in the United States for now, but you can change your device region to try it out.

My take: I’ve used most of these AI features daily on either my iPhone or my MacBook. Daily! I was not expecting that.

The AI-generated preview text in Mail = game changer. Email summaries are also nice but I haven’t used them often.
Summarized notifications from Mail & Messages = time saver. Love this!
Writing Tools = I use these for nearly everything I write on social media or in emails since it’s so easy to press on the keyboard.

While Siri is still pretty dumb, the stunning new UI (almost) makes up for it.

Overall, I’m already loving this. Apple Intelligence is impressive not only for its functionality but also for its speed. Everything happens in a split second and that cannot be overlooked. Oh, and it’s still Beta 1! This will only improve with time.

And keep in mind, we haven’t even seen all of the Apple Intelligence features yet, including the two biggest features of all: Siri 2.0 and Genmoji.

📲 iPhone 16 Details

Sonny Dickson/X

We are just over a month away from seeing the iPhone 16 and we have some fresh details!

New iPhone 16 dummy models reveal the potential colors: White, Black, Blue, Green, and Pink.
These models also show off Apple’s redesigned camera bump, which is expected for the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus.
As for the iPhone 16 Pro colors, those aren’t very exciting. They’re expected to come in Black, White, Natural/Bronze, and a Rose Gold color (to replace Blue Titanium).
The iPhone 16 Pro models are expected to support Wi-Fi 7, which will offer increased speeds and efficiency, especially if you have a Wi-Fi 7 router.
Apple is also set to assemble the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max models in India this year for the first time.

My take: The dummy units typically get it right when it comes to colors and overall design. The colors will look better (and likely less saturated) when they get officially announced by Apple, but this is mostly what to expect.

📲 Updates on Updates

Apple

This week, Apple must’ve broken a record for most software updates released in one day. Here’s the scoop.

On Monday, Apple released iOS/iPadOS 18.1 Beta 1 and macOS 15.1 Beta 1 with Apple Intelligence.
They also released iOS/iPadOS 17.6 and the corresponding updates for watchOS, tvOS, macOS, and the HomePod.
We also saw iOS 18 Public Beta 2 finally get released, which is the same as Dev Beta 4.
But that wasn’t it: Apple also released visionOS 1.3, iOS 16.7.9, iOS 15.8.3, macOS 13.6.8, and macOS 12.7.6.

My take: This was a crazy week for software updates, for all Apple devices!

While many see iOS 17.6 as a minor update, it’s an important one since it patches several security vulnerabilities. Same with all of the other non-Beta releases this week.

📰 Quick Bites

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