Apple Intelligence has new features with latest iOS update

11 Dec 2024

Image: © Camilo Concha/Stock.adobe.com

The company also announced that Apple Intelligence is now available to iPhone, iPad and Mac users in the UK.

Apple has today (December 11) released a brand-new set of features which aim to assist users of its iPhone, iPad and Mac products.

Apple has released the updates on iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 and includes new features for Apple Intelligence, the company’s “personal intelligence system”.

The features include Image Playground, a photo editing feature which is also available as its own app; Genmoji, which searches for relevant emojis based on the user’s description; a ‘describe your change’ option for Writing Tools; further support for ChatGPT to allow it to tap into Siri and Writing Tools; and new visual intelligence features, which assists users in learning about both objects and places.

Apple said it is also expanding its languages with localised English support for Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK. Other languages, including Chinese, English (India), English (Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Vietnamese are also in the pipeline.

The news comes a few months after the iPhone maker announced that Apple Intelligence would roll out to iPhone and iPad users in the EU from April 2025. However, Mac users in the EU can access Apple Intelligence when using a compatible device with supported settings and languages.

Apple Intelligence can be accessed in most regions around the world when the device and Siri language are set to localised English for Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK or the US.

As part of today’s release, the company also said Apple Intelligence is now available to iPhone, iPad and Mac users in the UK.

Apart from Apple Intelligence, Apple also announced what it called “a breakthrough for privacy in AI” with its Private Cloud Compute.

“Private Cloud Compute extends the privacy and security of iPhone into the cloud to unlock even more intelligence,” the company said in a statement. “When using Private Cloud Compute, users’ data is never stored or shared with Apple; it is used only to fulfil their request.

“Independent experts can inspect the code that runs on Apple silicon servers to continuously verify this privacy promise and are already doing so. This is an extraordinary step forward for privacy in AI.”

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Ciarán Mather is a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com