Since WWDC in June, users have been waiting with bated breath for Apple Intelligence, Apple’s grand foray into the world of generative AI. As soon as this week, some users could have their hands on Apple Intelligence, but for most people, the wait will be longer; longer than even September when Apple is expected to be launching the next generation of iPhones. A report from a reputed international business publication claims that Apple is planning on releasing Apple Intelligence as a part of iOS 18.1 instead of iOS 18, which will be released to users in October. That being said, for developers who are currently testing the unfinished release of iOS 18 and are on the developer beta ring, they could get an early build of iOS 18.1 as soon as this week, which will have Apple Intelligence as a part of its bag of tricks.
Apple, which has just seeded the fourth beta of iOS 18 to developers, will now jump to iOS 18.1 developer betas. This will also include a version of iPadOS 18.1, which will contain the Apple Intelligence suite minus the updated Siri, which is expected to be launched next year. Of course, to experience the features, even developers will need to run the beta versions of Apple’s software on devices running either the M1 chip or above or have the latest iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max models. Apple has made M1 processor-based notebooks since the end of 2020, with the iPad Pro getting updated with the M1 chip in 2021 and the iPad Air getting the chipset in 2022.
Of course, normal users can also experience these developer betas by selecting the option to experience beta updates in the settings menu. That being said, the developer betas are very unstable with rampant call drop issues and aren’t advised to be used by inexperienced users as data loss is also a possibility.
This will, of course, mean that at launch even the next generation iPhone 16 models, which for the first time across the lineup will be made in India, will also launch without Apple Intelligence out of the box, but will get updated a month later with the generative AI suite. Apple is also plotting huge updates to the NPU of the next generation iPhones which will likely get the A18 series of chipsets based on TSMC’s 3nm manufacturing, which could further bolster the generative AI capabilities of the devices.