With the release of iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, macOS Sequoia 15.4, and visionOS 2.4, the long-awaited Apple Intelligence features are now finally available in English (Singapore). Here’s a quick rundown on what you can expect to experience with Apple Intelligence, once you have updated your software.
Source: Apple
Enhance your communications with Writing Tools
The Writing Tools feature comes in handy across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS to help you enhance the way you communicate with others. Wherever you may write, including Mail, Messages, Notes, Pages, and even third-party apps – Writing Tools can help rewrite, proofread, and summarize text efficiently.
Apple Intelligence empowers Rewrite to read nuances and adjust the tone of text according to your preference, to deliver the message across effectively. Proofread checks for grammatical errors, choice of words, and even down to sentence structure – along with suggested edits and accompanying rationale – that you can quickly review and accept. Summarize allows you to select text, and have it quickly summarized in a more concise paragraph, bulleted key points, a table, or a list.
Describe Your Change introduces more flexibility and control into your writing style, and this allows Apple Intelligence to help shape your messages or emails to sound more expressive. The Writing Tools feature has been a staple in my life ever since I started using it in beta, and it has helped to shape the way I communicate, and has made my texts more effective.
Source: Apple
Clean Up Photos and more
Powered by Apple Intelligence, the Photos app now comes with a lot more capabilities. You can easily search for a memory within the Photos app just by typing a description – for example – ‘Mariel dancing in black dress’. This works across photos and videos – so if you’re searching for a specific segment of a video, you can describe it.
In the event where there are unwanted objects or people that happen to be in the frame of a photo, the Clean Up tool allows you to remove these elements easily. I’ve been using this quite often in beta, and this has been a lifesaver especially when I needed to edit and send out a photo quickly.
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Memories gives you the ability to quickly generate a movie made out of all your memories, simply by typing out a description. What Apple Intelligence will do, is to select photos and videos based on your description, craft a narrative with chapters based on themes, and arrange them into a movie.
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Design Fun Images with Image Playground
Image Playground is a great way to further express yourself with fun and unique images. By adding your own descriptions, you can even create images in the likeness of your loved ones using photos from your Photo Library. This can be used in apps like Messages, Freeform, Keynote and others – giving you the flexibility to create images while having discussions with others.
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Genmoji – Emoji’s hyped up cousin
Apple Intelligence powers Genmoji by introducing the ability to create your own emoji while having conversations with others. You can personalize Genmoji with accessories, add a theme, or activities to make them more unique. Similarly to emoji, Genmoji can be added inline to Messages, shared as a sticker, or as a reaction in a Tapback. I find this more natural to use especially when talking to people, as compared to Image Playground.
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Elevate Note-Taking with Image Wand
Words alone can get pretty dry and boring when taking notes in the Notes app, and Image Wand gives you the opportunity to create images using the written or visual context that has already been captured in your notes. If you have sketched something within your notes, Image Wand can help to polish that image simply by you circling it. If you need a quick image for visual reference, you can simply circle an empty spot within the note and Image Wand will help to generate an image by pulling context from the notes.
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Prioritize Messages in Mail
You know how you accidentally signed up for too many mailing lists, and important emails sometimes get drowned out? Priority Messages is a new section at the top of the Mail inbox that shows you the most urgent emails – such as same-day invitations, boarding pass, or action steps that are pending. To save time, you can also easily see summaries without opening an email by using the Summarize function. Smart Reply proposes quick responses that you can deploy to ensure that everything is addressed.
Source: Apple
Summarized Priority Notifications
When this first rolled out in beta, I never appreciated a summary more – and I never knew I needed this in my life. Apple Intelligence helps to prioritize your notifications with effective summaries right on your Lock Screen. In beta, the summaries might occasionally not capture the context of the group chat – and the summarized priority notifications turn out pretty off – which sometimes is quite funny. Hopefully with the official software update, this will be more accurate.
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There will be times where you’re on-the-go, and unable to take notes from a call. In both the Notes and Phone apps, you can now record, transcribe, and summarize audio – thanks to Apple Intelligence.
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Improved Siri
Siri now sports a beautiful glowing light around the edge of the screen when active, and it can now follow along even if you fumble while looking for the right words. Contextual understanding is key – and Siri can now maintain context between your requests. Across iPhone, iPad, and Mac, you can switch from text and voice to communicate with Siri.
Visual Intelligence
Visual Intelligence can easily help to create a calendar event from poster details, translate text, identify plants and animals, and so much more. You can access this by pressing and holding Camera Control on iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro. You can also customize the Control Centre, Lock Screen controls, or the Action button on iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16e. I use this pretty extensively in my daily life, and this would definitely be one of the most used features by everyone.
Source: Apple
Leverage ChatGPT with Siri and Writing Tools
ChatGPT is coming to Siri and Writing Tools on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, making it easier to get help without switching apps. Siri can now suggest using ChatGPT for certain questions and provide answers directly. In Writing Tools, users can generate text or even images with ChatGPT’s help.
Privacy stays in your hands – you decide when to use it and what to share. No account is needed by default, and OpenAI won’t store requests or use them for training. If you do link an account, OpenAI’s policies apply.
Source: Apple
Apple Vision Pro App for iPhone
A brand new app also comes to Apple Vision Pro, and with Apple Vision Pro app for iPhone, users can easily discover new spatial experiences, queue apps, and games to download from their iPhone. This will be available to download from the App Store with iOS 18.4, and will automatically appear on your iPhone once you update to iOS 18.4 if you have both devices associated with the same Apple account. Read more about visionOS 2.4 here.
Apple Intelligence may take some time to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, you’d realize the efficacy at which it brings to your life.
