Apple Intelligence has an official release date – but it won't be on your new iPhone 16 or iPhone 16 Pro at launch

Apple Intelligence
(Image credit: Apple)

Apple Intelligence, the brand-new AI feature suite coming to the best iPhones, now has an official release window – and we don't have long to wait.

Releasing in October as part of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, Apple Intelligence will be available in beta, with more features arriving throughout this year and into 2025.

Apple officially announced the arrival of Apple Intelligence at its Glowtime' event alongside the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max. You can catch up with everything Apple announced at our iPhone 16 event live blog.

The new iPhones are available to preorder from Friday, and will start shipping on September 20, albeit without Apple Intelligence.

When Apple Intelligence launches next month it will bring writing tools such as proofreading, Mail and notification summaries, improvements to Siri, and Clean Up for photo editing, to name just a few of the AI features. The initial launch, however, will only support US English, with localized English in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK arriving in December.

The new iPhone's Visual Intelligence feature won't arrive until later this year alongside other previously announced Apple Intelligence features such as Image Playground and Genmoji.

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No Apple Intelligence at launch

During the Apple event, Tim Cook said the iPhone 16s are the "first iPhones designed from the ground up for Apple Intelligence" but you'll also be able to use the AI features on last year's iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max too.

Some features, such as the new Visual Intelligence will be exclusive to this year's models, however, so if you want the best Apple Intelligence has to offer you'll need to upgrade.

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John-Anthony Disotto
Senior Writer AI

John-Anthony Disotto is TechRadar's Senior Writer, AI, ensuring you get the latest information on Tech's biggest buzzword. An expert in Apple, he was previously iMore's How To Editor and has a monthly column in MacFormat. Living in Scotland, where he worked for Apple as a technician focused on iOS and iPhone repairs at the Genius Bar, John-Anthony has used the Apple ecosystem for over a decade and is an award-winning journalist with years of experience in editorial.

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