iOS 18.1 and Beyond: Siri's Apple Intelligence Features

[MacRumors]

With Apple Intelligence, Apple is aiming to make Siri smarter than ever before. The personal assistant is going to be able to learn more about you, do more in apps, and hand over the reins to a smarter virtual assistant when needed.

Some new Siri features are available now, while some won't be coming until 2025. This guide highlights everything that's new with Siri thanks to Apple Intelligence.

Updated Siri Design

Siri has a refreshed design on devices that support Apple Intelligence. Rather than the small wavelength that used to show when activating Siri, there's now a pink/purple/blue/orange variegated glow that wraps around the entire iPhone, with the colors shifting as Siri listens to a command.

Better Language Understanding

Siri can better understand conversational language and requests, so if you stumble over your words or change your mind mid-sentence, Siri can still follow what you're saying.

Siri is also able to maintain context between requests, so you can refer to something in a previous request, and Siri will understand what you're talking about. So if you use Siri to create a calendar event, you can then just ask "What will the weather be like there?" and Siri knows where "there" is.

Improved Voice

Siri has a new, more natural sounding voice.

Type to Siri

There is a built-in Type to Siri feature so you don't need to speak to Siri to interact with the personal assistant. To use it, double tap on the bottom of the iPhone or iPad to bring up a text bar, and then from there, just type in your request.

Type to Siri can be used in the same way as speaking to Siri, and Siri is able to provide information without speaking aloud. It is a useful feature for public situations where you're not able to speak and do not want to have Siri speaking back to you.

• iOS 18.1: How to Type to Siri

Siri on the Mac

While this guide focuses on the iPhone and the iPad, the new, smarter Siri is also available on the Mac. Type to Siri can be enabled in the Settings app, and it can be assigned to a shortcut, such as pressing the Command button twice.

Apple Product Knowledge

Apple taught Siri about all of its products, so if you want to know how to use a feature or how to complete a task, you can ask Siri for help. Siri can provide step-by-step directions on using iPhone, iPad, and Mac features.

ChatGPT Integration (iOS 18.2)

In iOS 18.2, ChatGPT integration is available with Siri. If a user asks something that Siri is not capable of handling, ChatGPT can provide a response instead, so long as the user gives permission.

Siri can tap into ChatGPT, and then relay ChatGPT's response with no need to switch apps or use other tools.

The Siri ChatGPT integration can essentially be used to do anything you can do with the ChatGPT app or ChatGPT on the web, it's simply an easier way to get to ChatGPT.

Object Identification

For anything on your screen, such as an image, you can ask Siri a question about it. If you have a photo of a plant, for example, asking "What is this?" will prompt Siri to send a screenshot over to ChatGPT, and ChatGPT will attempt to provide context.

This works with images on the web, your photos, the something you're viewing through the Camera app, text, and more.

ChatGPT can be used to describe a scene, which is useful for people who might have issues with sight. Opening the Camera app, activating Siri, and asking "What is this?" will provide a detailed description of whatever is in front of you.

The option to send images to ChatGPT from screenshots is distinct from the Siri onscreen awareness feature that Apple plans to implement in the future.

Info From Documents

For emails, documents, PDFs, and more, ChatGPT can provide a summary. When you ask "Can you summarize this?" Siri will send a screenshot or the entire document, which includes full PDFs. It's a useful feature for getting a quick overview of the content of a long document.

For long PDFs or documents, you'll want to tap on the arrows to make sure the full document is sent to ChatGPT rather than just a screenshot.

Rather than asking for a summary, you can instead ask a specific question about a document. If you're looking at an insurance policy, you can ask "What are the limits of this policy?" or "What are the exclusions?" to get more tailored information.

Checking Spelling and Grammar

If you've written an email, rather than selecting it and using Writing Tools to check it for spelling and grammar errors, you can ask Siri to take a look, and Siri will send a screenshot to ChatGPT. "Can you look this over for errors?" works as a command for this feature.

ChatGPT can also be used for rewriting and refining what you've written, but note that this is not the same as Apple's own Writing Tools.

Generating Text and Images

ChatGPT can generate text from scratch based on prompts that it is given. You can, for example, ask Siri to ask ChatGPT to write a poem or compose a polite letter to a friend, and ChatGPT wi... Click here to read rest of article

Article Link: iOS 18.1 and Beyond: Siri's Apple Intelligence Features

 

[Unity451]

I use chatGPT daily. I've tried to use Apple Intelligence on Mac OS, and have found that it's not actually very helpful compared to using chatGPT natively. Maybe I'm missing something.

 

[waltman]

Apple Intelligence writing features would actually save time if Writing Tools are automatically applied when you send a message.

 

[Kottu]

To delete 147 call logs from my wife I have to swipe 147 times and click on delete 147 times. In Android, I don’t need to click more than 4 times. Can SIRI version 2 help me to delete unnecessary call logs?

 

[antiprotest]

Apple is not doomed, but just as many big companies eventually fell behind in certain categories -- Microsoft, HP, Sony, Panasonic, Polaroid, Motorola, Blackberry, etc., etc. -- Apple has been showing signs of losing in some categories to other companies, including some newcomers. I hope Apple does not become -- or stop being -- complacent, or trip itself up due to bureaucracies, or whatever reasons big companies fall behind. Because we do see the signs, and it's been going on for a number of years now. No, Apple is not doomed, but it's showing cracks in places where there shouldn't be.

 

[ZipZilla]

Siri sucks as much in 18.1 as it did the day it came out. Brutal.

 

[Kaos22]

Siri sucks as much in 18.1 as it did the day it came out. Brutal.

One of the truly more amazing recent discoveries in tech is just how far behind and flat footed Apple has been exposed on personal AI. A personal tech Jobs left them with a huge advantage. We will see how it all plays out, but this is, or should be, truly embarrassing for Timmy and Apple exec management.

 

[HiVolt]

Honestly they should have just kept Apple Intelligence release for iOS 19. This silly staggered release is dumb.

 

[iGeek2019]

To delete 147 call logs from my wife I have to swipe 147 times and click on delete 147 times. In Android, I don’t need to click more than 4 times. Can SIRI version 2 help me to delete unnecessary call logs?

At the moment it’s a firm “no”.

 

[PsykX]

Being a native French speaker and dev, I installed iOS 18.2 Beta on my 16 Pro. I see none of the above features except the cleanup tool, which is so inferior to what Pixelmator built in Photomator.

This Apple Intelligence rollout is very annoying and confusing to customers.

 

[GermanSuplex]

To delete 147 call logs from my wife I have to swipe 147 times and click on delete 147 times. In Android, I don’t need to click more than 4 times. Can SIRI version 2 help me to delete unnecessary call logs?

Unless I’m missing something, you can just go to recent calls and select Edit>Select>Clear and then confirm.

You can’t do it with Siri, but it’s easier than swiping on each call, unless you’re only trying to delete certain recents, which is a PITA.

All in all, Apple Intelligence is a novelty, but hopefully it gets better. To be honest, Siri seems to have gotten progressively worse. I’m not even comparing it to other offering, it’s simply not as good as it was even ten years ago. Simply asking it to play a song or a playlist is hit or miss these days.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

More filler articles to show activity that has zero impact on most current iPhone consumers for several generations to come.

I bit at the 14 Pro coming from the 8 Plus. I won't bite again until the 19 Pro or 20, unless performance of heavy unwanted features drags me into purchasing sooner.

Finite Automata/Machine Learning has its uses, especially in HPC. Not even natural language nor the once vaunted neural networks that never materialized in the 90s, as predicted, interests me.

Embedded communications devices for consumers are slowly becoming lipstick on a pig.

Our lives are ascending to new heights of vacuousness. Politics consumes the vast majority of current conversations, yet very few debate concern actual political substantive concerns, just deliberate tribalism reduced less eloquently than presented in, The Lord of the Flies."

I will not shed a tear for the 'influencer class' when it erodes.

I despised the Newton when I worked at Apple. Not because it didn't have a few interesting ideas. It just barely had a pulse even among technophiles. Our required Pagers ran a close second, especially receiving a message on the lieu.



If one chooses not to make a phone call on a phone often these days it says volumes of what we allowed ourselves to become--a codependent species crippled by reinventing the wheel over and over again.

We call it convenience to justify our dependence. And for what? To talk less and let summaries of thought be scripted through algorithmic probability models?

What's next? Intercourse by proxy?

 

[omiks]

I have a confession to make: Siri is MUCH worse now. Things that I used to ask her to do, or artist/songs that I used to ask her to play, she doesn't understand anymore. Not only that, when I say Siri, she doesn't activate most of the times anymore. Idk wtf wrong is happening with apple year after year...

 

[CarAnalogy]

What's next? Intercourse by proxy?

Love what you’re saying but I felt like that one actually came first. No pun intended.

 

[RamGuy]

The camera feature disappointed me. As both completely red-green, and green-red colour blind, and slightly blue-yellow colour blind, I had high hopes for this.

But when I’m at the grocery store trying to grab some unripe green bananas for my two year old I’m not able at all. I tried the iOS 18.2 BETA and it’s not able to tell me which are green and unripe and which ones are not.

Seems like such a obvious feature that would help people like me tremendously.

 

[svish]

Siri has a lot to improve. With this year's iOS it has become ever slightly better as of date. Like the glowing edges when Siri is activated on the iPhone. Object Identification is very useful. With ChatGPT integration, Siri should be more useful.

 

[randomgeeza]

To delete 147 call logs from my wife I have to swipe 147 times and click on delete 147 times. In Android, I don’t need to click more than 4 times. Can SIRI version 2 help me to delete unnecessary call logs?

Why don't you swipe on one of them. And then tap Clear (top right). How this is a Siri problem and not a you problem, perplexes me...? And I hate Siri!

 

[I_Sheep]

Every release they say Siri’s voice is more natural sounding and every time she still sounds like a robot. It’s crazy how natural ChatGPT sounds in comparison.

 

[JSRinUK]

I recently began experimenting with ChatGPT to see what all the fuss was about. I’ve been using it to summarise scenes from my stories, and to analyse character motives and emotions.

On the whole, it’s been pretty useful (like an instant “beta reader”). Sometimes, it goes off-track or forget things it’s already discussed.

Other times it’ll warn that “this content may violate our terms of use or usage policies”. Being a fictional action story, this flag generally comes up during action scenes (fighting, etc). Often it’ll continue anyway, but sometimes it won’t. I wonder if Siri will be some kind of gatekeeper if it stands between the user and ChatGPT, and won’t let you discuss such scenes.

I think I’ll just continue using ChatGPT for now and see if Siri’s version brings anything useful to the table when it’s available.

 

[attila]

Can we stop talking about Apple Intelligence until it A) the features exist, B) the features perform well?

 

[pali2704]

Why don't you swipe on one of them. And then tap Clear (top right). How this is a Siri problem and not a you problem, perplexes me...? And I hate Siri!

I think he wants to clear ONLY his wife's calls not the entire call logs.

 

[flybass]

More filler articles to show activity that has zero impact on most current iPhone consumers for several generations to come.

I bit at the 14 Pro coming from the 8 Plus. I won't bite again until the 19 Pro or 20, unless performance of heavy unwanted features drags me into purchasing sooner.

Finite Automata/Machine Learning has its uses, especially in HPC. Not even natural language nor the once vaunted neural networks that never materialized in the 90s, as predicted, interests me.

Embedded communications devices for consumers are slowly becoming lipstick on a pig.

Our lives are ascending to new heights of vacuousness. Politics consumes the vast majority of current conversations, yet very few debate concern actual political substantive concerns, just deliberate tribalism reduced less eloquently than presented in, The Lord of the Flies."

I will not shed a tear for the 'influencer class' when it erodes.

I despised the Newton when I worked at Apple. Not because it didn't have a few interesting ideas. It just barely had a pulse even among technophiles. Our required Pagers ran a close second, especially receiving a message on the lieu.



If one chooses not to make a phone call on a phone often these days it says volumes of what we allowed ourselves to become--a codependent species crippled by reinventing the wheel over and over again.

We call it convenience to justify our dependence. And for what? To talk less and let summaries of thought be scripted through algorithmic probability models?

What's next? Intercourse by proxy?

Can this make it to the front page as an op ed? Someone give this guy a soapbox.

 

[coolfactor]

To delete 147 call logs from my wife I have to swipe 147 times and click on delete 147 times. In Android, I don’t need to click more than 4 times. Can SIRI version 2 help me to delete unnecessary call logs?

Tap Edit > Select > (unselect any you want to keep) > Clear.

Or change your phone number and tell your wife that you're experiencing technical difficulties?

 

[oldwatery]

More filler articles to show activity that has zero impact on most current iPhone consumers for several generations to come.

I bit at the 14 Pro coming from the 8 Plus. I won't bite again until the 19 Pro or 20, unless performance of heavy unwanted features drags me into purchasing sooner.

Finite Automata/Machine Learning has its uses, especially in HPC. Not even natural language nor the once vaunted neural networks that never materialized in the 90s, as predicted, interests me.

Embedded communications devices for consumers are slowly becoming lipstick on a pig.

Our lives are ascending to new heights of vacuousness. Politics consumes the vast majority of current conversations, yet very few debate concern actual political substantive concerns, just deliberate tribalism reduced less eloquently than presented in, The Lord of the Flies."

I will not shed a tear for the 'influencer class' when it erodes.

I despised the Newton when I worked at Apple. Not because it didn't have a few interesting ideas. It just barely had a pulse even among technophiles. Our required Pagers ran a close second, especially receiving a message on the lieu.



If one chooses not to make a phone call on a phone often these days it says volumes of what we allowed ourselves to become--a codependent species crippled by reinventing the wheel over and over again.

We call it convenience to justify our dependence. And for what? To talk less and let summaries of thought be scripted through algorithmic probability models?

What's next? Intercourse by proxy?

One of the best posts I’ve read here in years. Brilliant.

 

[Skimac]

I think apple user barely use Siri for me Siri barely understands me and I don’t even have an accent so it needs a lot of work. It didn’t used to be this bad.