Report: These 10 New AI Features Are Coming in iOS 18

[JacquesleMac]

I also wonder if Apple will use AI to fix its awful Mail app on iOS? Awful because it seems to think a lot of my important emails are scam and moves them to the junk folder, despite my moving them into the main folder, another buggy software experience with them. Sigh. I think I‘ll have to go back to Outlook.

This is easy to fix. Add the name and email address for those people/companies you consider important to your Contacts. Then in Mail>Settings (or Preferences) check the first box (Sender of message is in my Contacts). They will never be moved to Junk again. (Apologies for odd screen shot: double click on it and all will become clear.)

 

[anthorumor]

Photos needs the biggest overhaul in my opinion. It's up there regarding usage and there is room for improvement:
1) Can't create your own hidden or password protected folders. There's just one place where they all lie
2) Can't create smart albums nor does iOS sync the ones created on the Mac over
3) Inability to search album name.
4) Could use even more A.I. features for sorting; everyone scrolls from their 'most recent'.

That and the App Library could use more categories

 

[macfacts]

For me personally, and I suspect it’s true for a lot of people, what I want to see from Apple’s AI integration is just being able to converse with Siri in a far more natural way when I’m asking for something. As is so often the case, I don’t want to have to say Hey Siri three times in a row when I ask one thing after another, usually as part of a related series of questions. Having Siri be able to ask me contextual questions would also be awesome.

Just be glad apple named their AI Siri and not something like Beetlejuice.😂

 

[nt5672]

You should realize that Apple has multiple teams. Teams are working on iOS 17, 18, 19 etc. There are teams working on the same for iPadOS, different teams are working on VisionOS.

That would be nice, but the way they abandon released projects with no upgrades or fixes for years really indicates that they have a few teams that move from project to project, not working a lot in parallel. An exception might be for Logic, which requires special knowledge.

The way they introduce bugs indicates that the current team is not the same as the previous team that worked on the product.

The way the UI and hardware are fragmented indicates a lack of consistency from moving too many people around.

I just get the impression that Apple software development is one big, giant, fire drill where no one knows what is going on outside of making pretty images for the WWDC KeyNote.

 

[The Apple Bitch]

What happened to 'AI generated recipes'?!?

Google and F*ckSmith took care of those 😉

 

[Mr_Ed]

Well they'll be beta features in beta versions of the os until launch in September. Hopefully that's enough time. And we don't know how long they've already been working on this stuff.

Let’s not kid ourselves. The general public are the beta testers these days. Labeling a feature “beta” doesn’t mean much anymore. Yet another reason I hope the AI features can be turned off.

 

[Pezimak]

This is easy to fix. Add the name and email address for those people/companies you consider important to your Contacts. Then in Mail>Settings (or Preferences) check the first box (Sender of message is in my Contacts). They will never be moved to Junk again. (Apologies for odd screen shot: double click on it and all will become clear.)

Why can it not by like other email programmes where if you move a couple of the emails out of your junk folder, they then automatically stop putting emails from that address into the junk folder again? Why do I need to add a company email address into my contacts?

 

[Mr_Ed]

I think you have that backwards. Most MR readers, already having their mind made up, will reflexively hate it.

Others, with an open mind (and not having an anti-Apple mindset) will give it a whirl and probably like the experience and results. And keep on using it going forward.

You are still describing people who are at least aware of the new features in the first place. Lots of people are set in their device use routines and couldn’t care less about some new feature. They update their devices primarily because Apple badgers them into doing so, or have “auto update” enabled, then they go about their typical use. They don’t read release notes or “tech” news. As long as they can still do the things they did before the update, they are happy.

My point is that unless the new AI features are intrusive, those people will never know about the features, and most don’t really care.

 

[DarkCole]

Hoping the Siri voices get updated as well, they’re behind on that front too.

 

[Biro]

As others have written, I’ll withhold judgement at least until WWDC. But I can honestly say none of the AI features listed in the Mac Rumors piece matter to me. So - for me - I was right to go with M2 devices this time around. It’s still early days for AI. We’re going to need a couple of years to work out the initial bugs - or discover if the technology is a net negative and best avoided.

 

[okkibs]

Faster and more reliable searches in Spotlight.

Is this some kind of sick joke? We have reliable Spotlight searches on MacOS, without AI. Why can't you guys at Apple just fix the trash that's Spotlight on my iPad? What good does AI do when Spotlight still randomly craps out and doesn't show the same local files it found just fine hours earlier?

I don't want a single AI feature off this list, not a single one. Siri is trash and more natural interactions won't make me bother turning it on again. And until I can't reliably store, sort, filter, find and otherwise handle my photos on Apple's mobile devices I am not doing any photo "retouching" anyways.

I love iOS, I use both iPhone and iPad, but you can imagine the amount of times I had an issue with some workflow and thought oh if only I had AI and new emojis...

 

[Frantisekj]

Besides the new features are mostly useless to me, i fear, the battery life will take a heavy hit from this...

[edit] Additionally i hope, if i switch off this stuff it will *really* be switched off...

I hope that leaked list is not all it come but your point can be very important. There can be implemented a lot of features but dead battery could be the price.

 

[Biro]

Is this some kind of sick joke? We have reliable Spotlight searches on MacOS, without AI. Why can't you guys at Apple just fix the trash that's Spotlight on my iPad? What good does AI do when Spotlight still randomly craps out and doesn't show the same local files it found just fine hours earlier?

I don't want a single AI feature off this list, not a single one. Siri is trash and more natural interactions won't make me bother turning it on again. And until I can't reliably store, sort, filter, find and otherwise handle my photos on Apple's mobile devices I am not doing any photo "retouching" anyways.

I love iOS, I use both iPhone and iPad, but you can imagine the amount of times I had an issue with some workflow and thought oh if only I had AI and new emojis...

Yeah, Siri. I turn it off when setting up any new device. The ONLY time Siri's voice is heard on any of my devices is if I am using GPS and Maps for directions.

 

[nottorp]

The main question being: which languages does all of this apply to? Because writing iMessages with English as a language setting works MUCH better than, let's say, Italian. All of these "Machine learning stuff" works, for the time being, really only in English AFAIK.

Oh come on. Since the laptops with the emoji keyboards it's been clear Apple only tests their devices in the California climate and only inside temperature controlled offices that don't have even a speck of dust where only English is spoken.

At least thanks to global warming my phone hasn't shut down in winter in a couple years. Unless I was mountain hiking...

In Romanian the spell checker has no idea when to put, for example, a or ă at the end of a verb. Which can be present tense vs past tense and that can change the meaning of the phrase. What's really infuriating is it gets fixated on either a or ă and ignores what i try to write, even when i correct it several times.

 

[CloneBB]

The whiner’s have the option to move to Android.

 

[dwsolberg]

I hope we can turn these off. If they can make Siri better, that would be great though.

 

[bigheaddoug]

To quote the philosopher Jerry Reed, they’ve got “a long way to go and a short time to get there.”

 

[Nekronos]

Lmao apple fan girl? I’m not doing anything to spite myself. SMS works just fine and rcs doesn’t help iPhone to iPhone. We literally have iMessage.

Rcs is for android and iPhone but as I said sms works just fine for me and I also have various other messaging apps.

Sorry I’m not on the lag droid bandwagon/bashing apple.

Your logic is hilariously contradicting. There is no downside to RCS, it's a long overdue upgrade to SMS/MMS that Apple dragged its feet on. If you are fine with SMS, logic dictates you are fine with RCS, the fact you claim otherwise is nonsensical.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Hey, Clueless Cook, do you know what would make things a lot more user-friendly than AI? Completely eliminating flat design while bringing back the skeuomorphic design of iOS 6. Instead of hoarding cash, use a tiny fraction of that to rehire Scott Forstall and give him back his old job position.

What makes you think Scott would want to come back? He’s already gone on to produce successful Broadway musicals.

Scott Forstall | The Broadway Producers

 

[JacquesleMac]

Why can it not by like other email programmes where if you move a couple of the emails out of your junk folder, they then automatically stop putting emails from that address into the junk folder again? Why do I need to add a company email address into my contacts?

On my Macs (which range from a 2014 iMac to an M2 Max Mac Studio) and on my iOS devices, that's exactly what Junk does. Why it's not working on your device might have something to do with your Mail settings, or various other reasons depending on your combination of hardware and software. I'd get an Apple authorised dealer to check it out.

Which is more important – the irritation of constantly having to move important emails (and the risk of losing one) or placing a company's details in your contacts, at least until you have figured out what's causing the problem?

 

[9081094]

Autogenerated emojis is practical? Another feature to turn off. What a let down.

The smart watch will also come with new autogenerated rainbow wristbands. No one saw that coming 😂

 

[oldwatery]

This is easy to fix. Add the name and email address for those people/companies you consider important to your Contacts. Then in Mail>Settings (or Preferences) check the first box (Sender of message is in my Contacts). They will never be moved to Junk again. (Apologies for odd screen shot: double click on it and all will become clear.)

Well if only it was that simple…or should I say effective. My wifes emails are constantly routed to Junk. And no funny comments please. This does not work at least for me. Much like so many Apple problems. But stoked we are getting more emojis!

 

[oldwatery]

The whiner’s have the option to move to Android.

What a selfish comment. So we are not allowed to be negative about some of these shocking issues and decisions? How very Apple of you!

 

[spazzcat]

...

The way the UI and hardware are fragmented indicates a lack of consistency from moving too many people around.

I just get the impression that Apple software development is one big, giant, fire drill where no one knows what is going on outside of making pretty images for the WWDC KeyNote.

You have no idea how complex and scaled this kind of development takes, bugs are just a normal part of the process, and the more you change the code the more chances there are to introduce bugs. Feature sets are being set right now for iOS 19. iOS 18 features would have been locked down around this time last year, which is why I don't believe most of the rumors that have been coming out that Apple is just starting to meet with X or starting on Y.

 

[JacquesleMac]

Well if only it was that simple…or should I say effective. My wifes emails are constantly routed to Junk. And no funny comments please. This does not work at least for me. Much like so many Apple problems. But stoked we are getting more emojis!

As mentioned, it only works if you have the name and email address in Contacts, and have ticked the box in Mail>Settings>[or Preferences] Junk Mail>Junk Mail Behaviours>Sender of message is in my Contacts
This works in every version of Mac OS I can remember (certainly as far back as Snow Leopard, probably further), and across my network of Macs which are running Big Sur, Monterey and Sonoma. (Though Mail on Monterey is flakey, but for different reasons.)