After a long wait, Apple has surprisingly released beta versions of iOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1 for developers to try out Apple Intelligence. While we expected Apple Intelligence to be available in beta at some point, we certainly didn't expect it to debut in this way. Currently, there are three Series of beta builds for macOS: the macOS Sonoma beta, the macOS 15 Sequoia beta, and the macOS 15.1 Sequoia beta. I've been using the latter, which includes the waitlist option for accessing Apple Intelligence, for about a week now—and I have some thoughts on it.
First of all, Apple Intelligence is still in beta. Some features are incomplete or not available at all, and the AI ​​suite has even been delayed entirely. Because Apple Intelligence is bundled with macOS 15.1, it won't be released with the regular public builds of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. It will be released later in the year, thus missing the launch of new iPhones. So the Apple Intelligence beta is still limited at the moment, missing features like Generative Playground, Genmoji, and ChatGPT integration. There are a few cool tools out now, and I've tried out five of the biggest ones.
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5 Transcripts in Apple Notes
You need an iPhone and iOS 18.1 to use this useful feature
iOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1 can work together to show you transcripts of audio recordings and calls. When you make a call from an iPhone running iOS 18.1 or later, you'll see a new option on the call screen that starts a recording. An automated message will play informing both parties that the call is being recorded, and then the recording will start. From there, you can take notes in Apple Notes alongside the recording and transcripts. With iCloud syncing, the call recordings, transcripts, and associated notes will be available on macOS 15.1.
As a reporter, this is pretty useful for me. Before call recordings were natively supported in iOS and macOS, I manually used a Pixel phone and the Google Recorder app to record calls and interviews. Now I don't have to. This feature will be useful in other situations too; I plan to use it when I call customer service representatives to document and hold them accountable. It's nice that the transcript and audio features are following Apple Notes to the Mac.
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4 Apple Mail summaries and priority messages
I have over 100,000 emails and this feature is a godsend
Apple Mail has been forgotten for a while, and because of that, many macOS users have switched to third-party alternatives. However, the new Apple Intelligence features might be useful enough to convince me to switch. I receive dozens of emails a day, and Apple Intelligence can select the ones it considers suitable. priority away from the rest by placing them at the top of your inbox. The app goes a step further and can use AI to generate a one or two line summary of the email content. This is better than the standard abbreviated email preview every time and helps me figure out if a message Really needs my attention.
Notification summaries are my favorite Apple Intelligence feature so far, even if they aren't as powerful as writing tools. Unfortunately, notification summaries on macOS Sequoia seem to be limited to the Mail app right now. In the future, I'd like to see them for macOS notifications and synced iPhone notifications as well.
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3 Natural language search in photos
It's easier to browse your photos and find what you need
You can now search your photos using natural language, and this Apple intelligence feature has already come in handy. I needed to find out my license plate for a document, and since I'd just bought a new car, I couldn't remember it yet. So I simply searched for “license plate” and a series of images containing license plates from my camera roll appeared. In the past, I might have had to search for “Arizona” or “New Jersey” to try to find the state names on my license plates using predictive text. Search in Photos is already smarter and will help.
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2 Siri
It's not perfect yet, but it's getting there
For many, the highlight of Apple Intelligence will be a smarter Siri. There is still a lot of work to be done, but the version of Siri in macOS 15.1 is already better than the current one in macOS Sonoma. The biggest change is probably Tap Sirithat lets you use text rather than voice commands to interact with Siri. Looking back, it's weird that Siri was ever voice-dependent on a desktop operating system. This change, along with Apple Intelligence's smart features that can find files or provide product information, make Siri more like Spotlight than a typical voice assistant.
You can even move the Type in Siri text box to the middle of your screen, although you can't pin it there permanently. I noticed a few oddities when using the new Siri, such as requesting a photo showing random images from Google instead of searching your Photos. But overall it was better, and deep product knowledge is already becoming part of Siri's repertoire. Siri and Apple Intelligence have the potential to be what Microsoft tried to be with Copilot before it was discontinued: simple and fast tech support. I still think a supercharged Siri could be a Spotlight replacement, it's just not there yet.
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This is the best Apple Intelligence feature you can use today
The most sophisticated and comprehensive Apple Intelligence feature you can use today is clearly Writing tools. That name stands for a variety of generative AI writing tools, and not all of them are currently available. However, Writing Tools can already summarize content, rewrite content, and change the structure and length of content. In some tests, I had Apple Intelligence summarize entire articles to a few sentences, and it did an excellent job. Rewriting might be more hit and miss; I found that Writing Tools swapped words with other synonyms, making sentences wordier but not significantly different.
Still, there was a lot of good. The best thing about the writing tools is that they are available everywhere in macOS Sequoia. You can use the writing tools anywhere there is selectable text or a text field. The possibilities are endless and this is true system-wide integration. Apple Intelligence may not be more powerful than Gemini for Workspace or Copilot, but it is certainly better integrated.
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What about all the other Apple Intelligence features?
These are the Apple Intelligence features available in the macOS 15.1 beta today, but there are more to come. That being said, the features available now are actually some of the most useful. Generative Playground and Genmoji are nifty, but they won't boost your productivity. In comparison, the revamped Siri, Writing Tools, and Apple Mail will certainly make using one of the best Macs easier.
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