The iOS 18.2 Beta Brings Exciting New Apple Intelligence Features

Apple has recently released its first beta update for iOS 18.2. This comes just a day after the company launched a release candidate version for iOS 18.1. The new beta offers several exciting features that emphasize Apple Intelligence.

Integration of ChatGPT with Siri

One of the most notable features in this update is the integration of ChatGPT. Now, when users summon Siri and ask a question that the assistant cannot answer, the request will be sent to OpenAI’s ChatGPT for assistance. According to Apple, users will be notified before any question is sent to ChatGPT, along with any images or documents, and then Siri will directly provide the answer back to the user.

For example, if you ask Siri, "What’s the quickest recipe for a breakfast that includes tomatoes, cheese, pepper, and eggs?", Siri will forward this query to ChatGPT, which is capable of delivering a detailed response based on its extensive language and reasoning capabilities.

Introducing Visual Intelligence

Another significant advancement is the feature called Visual Intelligence. This feature enhances the device's ability to analyze the environment. Users can point their iPhone camera at various objects, and the built-in AI will interpret what it sees.

Visual Intelligence can identify things like pet breeds, extract information from posters, and perform other similar tasks. Interestingly, all of this processing happens either on the device itself or through Apple's Private Cloud Compute system. This feature greatly improves accessibility, especially for people with visual or hearing impairments.

Image Generation with Image Playground

The iOS 18.2 beta also introduces a new image generation feature, referred to as Image Playground. This function allows users to create images from text descriptions, which is Apple’s version of text-to-image technology.

Users can also generate custom emojis, known as Genmojis, and utilize a "magic wand" tool to transform rough sketches into polished images. However, this feature is still in its early phase, and interested users must apply for access to give it a try. It remains to be seen how this will compare to similar offerings from other tech companies.

Email App Enhancements

This update will also revamp the Mail app significantly. Users can expect a new Primary category that highlights important emails, a section dedicated to Transactions, and a separate Updates category to help organize their inbox better.

As the testing of these new features begins, further findings will be shared soon, particularly on how they stack up against Google’s recent AI advancements.

Apple, iOS, technology