Apple has teased and promised many Apple Intelligence features since the inception of AI technology. introduced for the first time earlier this year, but now that iOS 18.1 is available, we finally get a taste of Apple’s AI ambitions.

And although the first suite of features is modest in scopeyou’re sure to find at least some of them useful. After running the beta versions of iOS with access to Apple Intelligence for several weeks, I think these are the three features you’ll actually use on a daily basis.

You need a iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone16 Or iPhone 16 Pro (or their Plus and Max variants) running iOS 18.1 and, most importantly, you need to request access to Apple Intelligence to take advantage of these new technologies.

Once you’re there, here’s what you can reasonably expect. More features will be added over time – and keep in mind that Apple Intelligence is still officially beta software – but this is where Apple is beginning its AI era.

Summaries bring TL;DR to your correspondence

In a time when our attention is so stretched and there seems to be less time to delve deeper into longer topics… Sorry, what was I saying?

Oh, that’s right: how many times have you wanted a version that was “too long; I haven’t read » not only long emails, but also the fire hose of communication that hits you? The ability to summarize notifications, emails, and web pages is perhaps Apple Intelligence’s most widespread and least intrusive feature so far.

When a notification arrives, such as a text from a friend or group in Messages, iPhone creates a short, one-sentence summary.

Sometimes the summaries are vague, and sometimes they are unintentionally funnybut so far I have found them more useful than not. Summaries can also be generated from alerts from third-party apps such as news or social media apps – although I suspect my outdoor security camera detects multiple passersby over time and doesn’t tell me that 10 people are stacked near the door.

That said, Apple Intelligence definitely doesn’t understand sarcasm or colloquialisms – you can turn off summaries if you prefer.

You can also generate a longer summary of emails in the Mail app: tap the icon To summarize at the top of a message to preview the content in a few dozen words.

In Safari, when viewing a page where Reader is available, tap the icon Page menu In the address bar, tap Show player then press the Summary button at the top of the page.

Siri gets a glow and better interaction

I was amused during the iOS 18 and iPhone 16 releases that the main visual indicator of Apple Intelligence – the full-screen, edge-colored Siri animation – was noticeably missing. Apple even lit the edges of the enormous glass cube in its Apple Fifth Avenue Store in New York like a Siri search.

Instead, iOS 18 used the same old Siri sphere.

Now, the modern Siri look has arrived in iOS 18.1, but only on devices that support Apple Intelligence. If you keep tapping your finger in the Apple Intelligence Waitlist queue, you will also see the Siri sphere at the moment.

With the new look comes some improvements to Siri interaction: it’s more forgiving if you come across a request, like saying the wrong word or interrupting you mid-thought. It’s also best to listen after providing results, so you can ask related follow-up questions.

However, the ability to personalize responses based on what Apple Intelligence knows about you is still to come. iOS 18.1 also does not include ChatGPT as an alternative source of information – this interaction has only just been rolled out in the iOS 18.2 beta for developers.

Remove distractions from your photos using Clean Up in the Photos app

Until iOS 18.1, the Photos app on iPhone and iPad did not have a simple editing function. Dust on the camera lens? Garbage on the ground? Sorry, you have to deal with these and other distractions in the Photos app on MacOS or by using a third-party app.

Apple Intelligence now includes Clean Up, an AI-enhanced removal tool, in the Photos app. When you edit an image and press the To clean button, iPhone analyzes the photo and suggests potential items to delete by highlighting them. Tap one or draw a circle around an area and the app erases those areas and uses generative AI to fill in plausible pixels.

In this first incarnation, Clean Up is not perfect and you will often get better results with other dedicated image editors. But for quickly removing unpleasantness from photos, it’s very good.

Watch this: Impressions from Apple Intelligence: Don’t expect a radical change

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