Apple releases Apple Intelligence for some devices, new iMac with M4 chips

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The new iMac with M4 flies through demanding creative workflows, such as applying complex filters and effects in apps like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere Pro.

Apple announced the first set of Apple Intelligence features for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users is now available through a free software update with the release of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. Apple Intelligence is a personal intelligence system to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks. Today marks the availability of the first set of features.

“Apple Intelligence introduces a new era for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, delivering brand-new experiences and tools that will transform what our users can accomplish,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Apple Intelligence builds on years of innovation in AI and machine learning to put Apple’s generative models at the core of our devices, giving our users a personal intelligence system that is easy to use — all while protecting their privacy. Apple Intelligence is generative AI in a way that only Apple can deliver, and we’re incredibly excited about its ability to enrich our users’ lives.”

Among the features:

Integrated across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, Writing Tools allow users to refine their language by rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing text virtually everywhere they write, including Mail, Messages, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps.

Siri becomes more natural, flexible, and integrated into the system experience. It has a brand-new design with an elegant glowing light that wraps around the edge of the screen when active on iPhone, iPad, or CarPlay. On Mac, users can place Siri anywhere on their desktop to access it easily as they work. Users can type to Siri at any time on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and can switch fluidly between text and voice as they use Siri to accelerate everyday tasks. With richer language-understanding capabilities, Siri can follow along when users stumble over their words and maintain context from one request to the next. In addition, with extensive product knowledge, Siri can now answer thousands of questions about the features and settings of Apple products. Users can learn everything from how to take a screen recording to how to easily share a Wi-Fi password.

Based on a user’s description, Apple Intelligence can select and assemble photos and videos into a movie with its own narrative arc.

The Photos app is even more intelligent with many new capabilities. Natural language search gives users the ability to search for just about anything by simply describing what they are looking for, like “Maya skateboarding in a tie-dye shirt.” This works across videos, too, so users can search for something that happened in a specific segment of the video and go right to it. Search also offers smart completion suggestions to help users quickly complete a search.

When an unwanted object or person ends up in the frame of a photo, the Clean Up tool gives users a way to remove distracting elements while staying true to the moment as they intended to capture it.

The Memories feature now gives users the ability to create the movies they want to see by simply typing a description.1 Using language and image understanding, Apple Intelligence will pick out the best photos and videos based on a user’s description, craft a storyline with chapters based on themes identified from the photos, and arrange them into a movie with its own narrative arc.

New Apple Intelligence features will be available in December, with additional capabilities rolling out in the coming months. In December, a new visual intelligence experience will build on Apple Intelligence and help users learn about objects and places instantly, using the new Camera Control on the iPhone 16 lineup. Users will be able to pull up details about a restaurant in front of them and interact with information — for example, translating text from one language to another. Camera Control will also serve as a gateway to third-party tools with specific domain expertise, like when users want to search Google for where they can buy an item, or benefit from ChatGPT’s problem-solving skills. Users are in control of when third-party tools are used and what information is shared.

  • The first set of Apple Intelligence features is available now as a free software update with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, and can be accessed in most regions around the world when the device and Siri language are set to U.S. English.
  • Apple Intelligence is available on iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPad with A17 Pro or M1 and later, and Mac with M1 and later.

Apple also announced the new iMac, featuring M4 chip and Apple Intelligence, in an ultra-thin design. With M4, iMac is up to 1.7x faster for daily productivity, and up to 2.1x faster for demanding workflows like photo editing and gaming, compared to iMac with M1. With the Neural Engine in M4, iMac is the world’s best all-in-one for AI and is built for Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that transforms how users work, communicate, and express themselves, while protecting their privacy. The new iMac is available in an array of beautiful new colors, and the 24-inch 4.5K Retina display offers a new nano-texture glass option. iMac features a new 12MP Center Stage camera with Desk View, up to four Thunderbolt 4 ports, and color-matched accessories that include USB-C. Starting at just $1,299, now with 16GB of unified memory, the new iMac is available to pre-order, with availability beginning Friday, Nov. 8

The M4 chip brings a boost in performance to iMac. Featuring a more capable CPU with the world’s fastest CPU core, the new iMac is up to 1.7x faster than iMac with M1. Users will feel this performance across everyday activities like multitasking between their favorite apps and browsing webpages in Safari. And with an immensely powerful GPU featuring Apple’s most advanced graphics architecture, iMac with M4 handles more intense workloads like photo editing and gaming up to 2.1x faster than iMac with M1. This also enables a smoother gameplay experience in titles like the upcoming Civilization VII. The new iMac comes standard with 16GB of faster unified memory — configurable up to 32GB. The Neural Engine in M4 is now over 3x faster than on iMac with M1, making it the world’s best all-in-one for AI, and accelerating the pace at which users can get things done.

The new iMac comes in seven colors, bringing fresh shades of green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, and blue, alongside silver. Every iMac comes with a color-matched Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse or optional Magic Trackpad, all of which now feature a USB-C port, so users can charge their favorite devices with a single cable.

All four USB-C ports support Thunderbolt 4 for superfast data transfers, so users can connect even more accessories like external storage, docks, and up to two high-resolution displays.

On the new iMac, all four USB-C ports support Thunderbolt 4 for superfast data transfers, so users can connect even more accessories like external storage, docks, and up to two 6K external displays, creating a massive canvas with more than 50M pixels for users to spread out their work. iMac also supports both Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. And with the advanced security of Touch ID, users can easily and securely unlock their computer, make online purchases with Apple Pay, and download apps. Additionally, Touch ID works with Fast User Switching, so customers can switch between different user profiles with just the press of a finger.