If you rushed to install the iOS 18 developer beta on your iPhone, we have some good news and bad news. The good news is that some features added in iOS 18 such as the enhanced Control Center containing the power-off button, the app icon home screen customizations, and many other new features are available to those who install the beta. However, if you were looking forward to testing Apple Intelligence, you are going to be disappointed.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter, some AI features will be available to iPhone users running iOS 18 in late 2024 while others won’t be ready until 2025. This approach takes some of the internal pressure off of Apple. For example, the tech giant is currently working on adding servers powered by Apple’s powerful M-series chips to its cloud infrastructure. If it allowed iPhone users running the iOS 18 developer beta to test out these features now, there is a good chance that the system would crash.
Gurman also points out that by limiting use of AI services to a smaller group at the start, the ChatGPT chatbot will be less likely to hallucinate (not in the same sense that Aaron Rodgers might be hallucinating these days; Google ayahuasca). AI chatbots are prone to spewing out bogus information based on the large amounts of incorrect information that these chatbots receive.
Later this year your iPhone will glow around the edges when Siri is activated
If you installed the iOS 18 developer beta, the biggest complaint that I’ve been warned about is the sharp drop in battery life even on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. If you installed the beta hoping to catch a glimpse of new Siri, you have the same chance of popping into your supermarket and finding new Coke. Those chances are slim and none. The iOS 18 developer beta does not show the new Siri logo or the glowing light around the edge of your iPhone that will eventually appear when you summon your virtual digital assistant.
Sadly many of the features for Siri that Apple demoed at WWDC won’t be available until 2025 including the use of personal context to find out the answer to a query such as “What time is my Mom’s flight due to land?” When the feature is ready, Siri will go through your emails and texts and even your Photos app looking for the answer. Until next year, Siri won’t be able to figure out what is on your screen nor will the virtual digital assistant be able to browse your Photos to find a specific image, edit it, and share it in an email.
That’s not to say that there won’t be any changes to Siri that you’ll see this year. The new interface with the glowing lights will eventually hit iOS 18 later this year, and Siri will be able to understand you even if you stumble on a word. And the improved “Type to Siri” feature will also be added before 2024 comes to an end.
Only you can determine whether it is worth installing an unstable beta in order to use the new iOS 18 features that are available now. While the developer beta is available now, the iOS 18 public beta will be released next month with the final, stable version expected in September around the time that Apple releases the iPhone 16 series.
