iOS 18 is coming soon, but Apple Intelligence will roll out across several months.
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Apple Intelligence, the company's suite of AI-based enhancements, are probably not going to arrive with iOS 18, and will probably arrive starting in iOS 18.1
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, quoting unnamed sources, reports that the core iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 will still launch as promised in September 2024. The report claims that the first of the Apple Intelligence features, won't begin to arrive until October — likely as part of a version 18.1 update.
Apple Intelligence includes new features such as intelligent notification management, summarizing abilities for both voice messages and text, new writing tools, ChatGPT integration, an improved Siri assistant, and more.
Coming Soon: iOS 18 and iPadOS 18
The releases of iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 will arrive as planned for a wide variety of older and new devices. Compatibility with iOS 18 stretches back as far as the 2018 iPhone XR and later models.
The 2018 iPad Pro models are compatible with iPadOS 18. In addition, iPad Air and iPad mini models from 2019 and later, and 2020 or later iPad models are also compatible.
Delaying the rollout of Apple Intelligence, which won't run on any devices prior to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, will give developers more time to incorporate Apple Intelligence features into their own apps. The move will also give Apple more time to fix any bugs found in the technology.
Coming later: Apple Intelligence
Apple has previously inferred that Apple Intelligence will not be part of the initial iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 launches. Apple Intelligence features are expected to debut in stages across the last quarter of 2024, and the rollout may stretch into early 2025.
Developers will start seeing new AI features in iOS 18.1 and iPadOS 18.1 betas arriving shortly. Testing of the new features is expected to take longer than usual, due to the relatively small number of currently-compatible devices.
Apple has treated iOS 18 and related updates and Apple Intelligence as two interlocking but separate technologies since its debut in June 2024 at the WWDC. During the initial presentation, the OS and the Apple Intelligence features were highlighted in two completely separate parts of the keynote, due to the high device requirements for the latter technology.
The delay would likely mean that initial shipments of the forthcoming iPhone 16 models will have iOS 18 on board, but also initally lack the Apple Intelligence features. Apple could choose to emphasize getting familiar with the iOS 18 features as a way of setting the stage for the later Apple Intelligence updates.