Apple reportedly releasing iOS 18.1 with Apple Intelligence features on October 28

[Harry Wild]

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is planning to release iOS 18.1 to the public on October 28th, which will include some of the first Apple Intelligence features.

This goes against previous expectations of a mid October launch, but Gurman says that this is because the company is taking its time to make sure they eliminate any bugs, and also to make sure their private cloud compute servers can handle all of the traffic from millions of public users installing the update.

[Fringe Try]

iOS 18.1 features

With iOS 18.1 potentially releasing on October 28th, that means iPhone 16 users can finally use some of the Apple Intelligence features that were promised, just over a month after the phone launched. Although, some of the features shipping in iOS 18.1 might not be the most appealing.

Upon installing the update, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 users will be able to try out the following features:

Writing Tools

New Siri UI (though the truly new experience won’t be out until later)

Notification Summaries

Memory Creation in Photos

Clean Up in Photos

Intelligent Breakthrough with Notifications

 

Apple Intelligence rollout

However, some of the more appealing features are still ahead, and will slowly roll out between now and the spring:

October: iOS 18.1, with the features listed above

December: iOS 18.2, with ChatGPT support, Genmoji, and Image Playground

Early 2025: iOS 18.3 or iOS 18.4 with new Siri rollout

So, even though the new features are beginning to roll out, it’ll be a decent while before everything is fully rolled out. Hopefully, by the time the new iPhone SE 4 launches, all of the Apple Intelligence features will be fully rolled out.

[Luke Friend]

8.2 apparently has Genmoji and ChatGPT integration

Edit: and Image Playground as well

[UselessKit]

I’m running the 18.1 PB and my experience is anything but stable.

Scrolling through a longer list of notifications freezes and crashes.

Icons disappear on my Home Screen

Smaller icons glitch out in the App Library

Home Screen icons change color randomly, adopting more than one color setting

[stainedmonster]

My understanding is that current 18.1 Beta Siri is virtually nothing more than a visual update in its current state (aside from the new Type to Siri feature). Am I wrong?

[JKY 78]

Siri on 18.1 is a minor update and isn’t the full new version yet. At most it reads more to you rather than always just serving you web links.

[Andie Bell]

Apple can't do this soon enough...not because it's the best thing since sliced bread, but if only to get this monkey off their back.

Releasing an iPhone touted as built for AI but without AI out of the box was one of the biggest missteps we've seen from Apple. Not a game changer given the infancy of AI, but it does suggest Apple was behind Google and MS in this space.