iOS 18.1: 5 new features to expect, including Apple Intelligence and iPhone Mirroring
iOS 18 only rolled out to iOS 18-compatible devices on September 16, but Apple is already gearing up to launch its next major update: iOS 18.1.
Normally these decimal-numbered updates are more incremental than groundbreaking, but this year, Apple’s first post-launch iOS update will be bigger than iOS 18 itself. Yes, the time has finally come: Apple Intelligence is coming to compatible iPhones as part of iOS 18.1.
Of course, that’s not the only change that will be introduced by Apple’s next software update – the one according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurmanis scheduled for release on September 28 – and below we’ve rounded up five of the biggest new features.
Apple Intelligence features
Here’s the big one: Apple Intelligence debuts on compatible iPhones as part of iOS 18.1. You can find the full list of eligible devices in our Apple Intelligence compatibility guide, but for iPhones specifically you need an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, or iPhone 16 ProMax.
Unfortunately, not all of Apple Intelligence’s features will be made available in iOS 18.1 – and those that do will be limited to US English for now – but many of Apple’s key AI features will make their debut in the coming weeks. We have highlighted some of them below.
- Siri: Apple’s new and improved Siri assistant is more natural, more contextually relevant, and overall a lot smarter than before. For questions it can’t answer itself, it can pass the question to ChatGPT (with your permission), and summoning Siri will trigger a pretty nice glow animation across the device.
- Writing tools: Apple’s suite of AI-powered writing tools let you proofread text, rewrite text in a chosen tone, and quickly reply to messages or emails.
- Photo features: For the Photos app, Apple introduces Intelligence Clean Up, which lets you remove unwanted people and objects from an image; Memory Movie, which creates image slideshows based on written directions; and natural language search.
- Summaries: Apple Intelligence can provide summaries (i.e. easy-to-read summaries) of emails, phone calls, audio recordings, and even notifications.
As for the Apple Intelligence features that won’t arrive with iOS 18.1, Apple reportedly plans to launch Image Playground and Genmoji in future iOS updates. The former allows users to create generative images in various iPhone apps like Messages or Notes, while the latter is essentially a custom emoji generator.
Moving on to the non-AI (and non-device exclusive) features, iOS 18.1 will open up your iPhone’s features NFC chip available to third party developers for the first time. What exactly does this mean?
Well, it will essentially allow developers outside of Apple to enable in-app contactless transactions for, in Apple’s words“in-store payments, car keys, closed transit, corporate badges, student ID, house keys, hotel keys, merchant loyalty and rewards, and event tickets, with government IDs to be available at a later date.” In other words, your iPhone could soon replace your wallet.
Naturally, all developers interested in accessing the NFC chip will have to “enter into a commercial agreement with Apple (…) and pay the associated costs”, but given the number of contactless-using iPhone owners in the world, we doubt that they will hesitate to do so.
Improved iPhone mirroring
iPhone Mirroring – which lets you control your iPhone from your MacBook screen as long as you’re using macOS Sequoia and iOS 18 – was one of the features that excited us most at WWDC 2024, but its early functionality in iOS 18 was limited.
Fortunately, iOS 18.1 adds the ability to drag and drop files between your iPhone and MacBook seamlessly (in the iOS 18.1 beta it works in both directions), making iPhone Mirroring a much more useful tool. We hope Apple further improves this feature by adding audio input pass-through in future updates.
A minor upgrade to the Control Center
iOS 18 introduced the ability to customize Control Center, but if you let your creativity take over, you’ll be happy to know that iOS 18.1 will add a “Reset Control Center” option in the Settings app (because sometimes Apple’s way is the best way).
Another small but welcome adjustment to the Control Center: according MacRumorsiOS 18.1 lets you add separate Control Center buttons for Wi-Fi and VPNs. Currently, all connectivity switches are bundled into a single widget.
Selfie option for camera control
Last but not least, iOS 18.1, exclusively for iPhone 16 users, will make the Camera Control button compatible with the selfie camera.
To switch to the selfie camera using Camera Control, you need to open the Camera app, lightly press the Camera Control button twice, navigate to the Cameras option, and then scroll all the way to the left. There you will find a new Selfie option.