iOS 18.1 Goes Live With Apple Intelligence, Giving iPhone Users A Big Incentive To Update

Updated October 31 with details of Apple Intelligence waitlist and delays.

Apple Intelligence, Apple’s take on AI, is now live. It has arrived on the iPhone and will land on the Mac and iPad at the same time. For the phone, that’s down to iOS 18.1 — if you’re still holding back from switching from iOS 17 to iOS 18, there’s also a new update for you, with security fixes on board, but no Apple Intelligence.

If you haven’t upgraded to iOS 18 on your iPhone running iOS 17, that’s fine. For sure, you can upgrade if you want to because the list of iPhones compatible with iOS 18 and iOS 17 are identical (full list below).

There are plenty of people who haven’t made the switch yet for reasons such as users who found issues with email systems, for instance. Another user commented that an audio wave feature was missing in Live Captions, and others have tuned into threads warning of serious issues in iOS 18 and decided to wait until it’s run in a bit more. Yet more have said they’re perfectly happy with iOS 17, thank you very much, and are waiting until the new version is more polished.

All of which is fair enough, but in that case consider iOS 17.7.1, which is purely for security purposes and has no new features, meaning it’s less likely to cause problems.

The bug fixes are similar to the ones in iOS 18.1, including issues with Safari, Safari Downloads, Shortcuts, VoiceOver and Siri, as well as key elements of the phone such as WebKit and Kernel.

The VoiceOver bug was particularly tricky and meant that “an attacker may be able to view restricted content from the lock screen,” as Apple put it. Since that content could include passwords, upgrading to fix that seems like a good idea.

There’s nothing wrong with not moving to iOS 18, but early indications show it’s stable now, and there are huge number of new features, now including Apple Intelligence. Note also, if you have upgraded to iOS 18.1, there’s a waitlist for Apple Intelligence.

Apple Intelligence Waitlist

When you have installed iOS 18.1, if your iPhone is one of the six models that’s compatible with Apple Intelligence (comprehensive list below) you can sign up to try the AI features. Again, full details of these are below.

A waitlist is a novel feature in an Apple release, but it’s done to streamline things and because Apple Intelligence is a feature that’s still at the beta stage. Once you’ve signed up to join, the iPhone starts downloading some generative AI models from Apple, in readiness for you to use ChatGPT, if you wish to. And if you do, it will need to get in touch with Apple’s servers via a process which Apple says is highly secure: Apple Private Cloud Compute.

Getting enrolled may be a big part of the need for the waitlist. As content creator Brandon Butch says, “For those still asking: ‘why is there a waitlist for Apple Intelligence?’ Here's some good insight from a server engineer: ‘The real cause is almost certainly enrolling you in Private Cloud Compute. That's the server side of Apple Intelligence. Some of your requests are handled locally, while more complex ones are sent to the cloud.’

So, how long is the waitlist? Well, in the hours after iOS 18.1 was released, it was initially between 30 minutes and an hour between request and acceptance. As more people sign up, this could grow.

Which iPhones Can Run iOS 18.1?

Any iPhone that can run last year’s software, iOS 17, is good to go with iOS 18.1. That means everything from the iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max and iPhone Xr onwards. Every handset in the following series is included: iPhone 11, iPhone 12, iPhone 13, iPhone 14, iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 plus iPhone SE second- and third-generation models. Note that Apple Intelligence is only compatible with the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, plus this year’s entire iPhone 16 range.

While it’s always the case that some features are only available on selected handsets, this time around that caveat applies to a lot more. That’s because Apple Intelligence is only available for six iPhones: iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. What’s more, if you have one of these, you need to have the language and Siri set to U.S. English (this will change when iOS 18.2 arrives in December).

Hold on, though, even if you don’t have one of those, there are still benefits in iOS 18.1.

How To Get It

You’ll know the routine by now, but just in case: open the Settings app, click on General, then Software Update. After that, click Download and Install, and let the software work its magic.

What’s In The Release

We’ll come to Apple Intelligence in a moment. For all users, there are call recordings. You can now record live phone calls or FaceTime audio. There are also updates to Control Center, fixes to Podcasts issues and video recording problems found in certain situations, plus fixes for digital car keys. New hearing features are coming to AirPods Pro 2.

For iPhone 16 series users, there’s a fix to a random restart bug and improvements to Camera Control.

And then there’s Apple Intelligence. This is coming bit by bit, but the first features are now live. These include writing tools to help you proofread text or improve what you’ve written and a new look to Siri, which now has extensive Apple product knowledge so you can ask your iPhone questions about, well, your iPhone for a start.

Clean Up comes to Photos to take unwanted objects out of images and the capability to create slideshows from words in Memory Movie.

There’s a new Focus mode to reduce interruptions and you can now summarize emails and Messages. Much more is to come, but this is a solid start.