Apple's AI is Finally Here! But Mainland China Users Will Have to Wait

Apple's AI is Finally Here! But Mainland China Users Will Have to WaitOn Monday, Apple announced on its US website that it has begun rolling out the iOS 18.1 update

Apple's AI is Finally Here! But Mainland China Users Will Have to Wait

On Monday, Apple announced on its US website that it has begun rolling out the iOS 18.1 update. The highly anticipated AppleIntelligence ("Apple Intelligence") is finally available to users in the "American English" region. In addition to iPhone users, iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1 updates were also released on Monday, allowing eligible tablet and computer users to use Apple AI at the same time.

However, mainland China users and a large number of non-English-speaking users worldwide still cannot use it. Apple previously revealed that it would add localized English support for countries like the UK and Australia in December, with features for Chinese, Indian English, French, German, Japanese, and other languages to follow in the coming year. Regarding when mainland China users can use Apple AI, Cook, who just visited China last week, responded: "We are working on it. There is a very specific regulatory process behind this, and we need to go through that process. We also hope to bring it to Chinese consumers as soon as possible."

For eligible overseas users, in addition to upgrading to version 18.1, they also need to request to enable AppleIntelligence in the "settings". After obtaining access, the device will download and run the necessary Apple model for AI.

What are the initial features of Apple AI?

Apple's move in the AI field is not a big leap. In addition to language restrictions, most of the functions cannot be easily replaced by other existing AI services.

After completing the system update, iPhones, iPads, and Macs will have a "system-wide AI writing assistant" - including Mail, Notes, Messages, Pages as well as third-party applications. Simply put, users can select a piece of text and have Apple AI rewrite it in a "professional, concise, or friendly" tone. You can also put a paragraph in a PPT and have AI summarize it into several key points. In addition, you can instantly summarize and organize, proofread text, and suggest word structure.

In the "Photos" app, the text search function is now more intelligent, but the main update is the cleaning tool. By selecting unwanted people or objects in a picture, you can remove them with one click.

Another update this time is the email summarization feature that has been repeatedly recommended by Cook. "Priority Messages" appear at the top of the inbox, displaying the most urgent emails, such as a lunch invitation or boarding pass information for the day. Users can directly click on the email to view the summary and use AI to write a smart reply.

Other features are simple to mention: "Notification Summary" allows users to quickly browse stacked notifications, highlighting key details; the new "Reduce Distractions" focus mode will only display information that needs immediate attention; the Notes and Phone apps can record, transcribe, and summarize information (Note: The other side will receive a notification when recording starts).

For mainland China users, although AI is not yet available, new features such as call recording, camera control, and Airpods hearing aid are still available.

An "It Will be Better in December" Announcement

Apple, knowing that these AI features are not advanced, also announced on Monday that more AI features will be released in the December system update.

The "promise" Apple made for December includes a magic wand for images - able to convert rough sketches into "pleasing images" or generate images using the context of the surrounding area; writing tools will also become more powerful, and in addition to the current few buttons, users can tell AI what specific changes they want to make to the text.

The key update to this year's iPhone 16 series - the camera control button, will also get AI visual interaction features, including finding information about the restaurant in front of you and interacting with it. A more important update is that users can choose to use ChatGPT on writing tools and Siri, directly using the most advanced multimodal chatbot in Apple apps.

Of course, these features have been pushed through the beta version 18.2 system, so they are not a secret. Mark Gurman, a well-known leaker who is using the 18.2 beta system, said that version will be a major update. If Apple had released these features two months earlier in September, the current discussion about "Apple Intelligence" would be completely different.