Apple Intelligence will roll out in stages – expect multiple free feature upgrades

Apple's advertising for the iPhone 16 is very confusing right now: the focus of much of the marketing is on Apple Intelligence, which isn't available to anyone anywhere as a finished product. As we reported when the iPhone 16 launched, Apple Intelligence is going to be arriving in multiple stages and at different times for different countries. But a new report suggests that at least some of the features may arrive sooner than expected.

The new report is by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who says that there are going to be three distinct Apple Intelligence rollouts in October 2024, November/December 2024, and March 2025. 

Here's what's coming when.

When is Apple Intelligence coming to iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 16 range?

The first version of iOS 18 with Apple Intelligence will be iOS 18.1, and that's expected in mid-October. It won't bring Apple Intelligence to the UK, but you'll be able to get around that if you set your device location and language to the US.

That first update will be fairly underwhelming, but if you change your location and language you'll get a few Siri improvements so it can understand you better. You'll also get new writing tools for text, notification summaries for key apps, the Clean Up object removal tool for Photos and phone call recording and transcription.

iOS 18.2 is the big one. That brings Apple Intelligence to UK users and also adds generative AI emoji, the Image Playground image generator and ChatGPT integration, a new Mail interface and more control over notifications. That's expected "by December", so a late November launch is possible.

iOS 18.3, due in January, is likely to be a maintenance release before the next big update, iOS 18.4, currently scheduled for March 2025. That's when the serious new Siri features will arrive. However, Gurman says that some of the features "are in consideration for iOS 18.3", although he doesn't say which ones.

That's a lot of upgrades, but it's also a long wait: Apple is effectively selling iPhone 16s on the basis of features that in some cases are still six months away. It remains to be seen how that's going to go down with iPhone 16 buyers, at least some of whom are likely to be very disappointed by Apple Intelligence's absence.