In three betas, iOS 18 testers still can’t try out Apple Intelligence features

The beta-testing cycle for Apple’s latest operating system updates is in full swing — earlier this week, the third developer betas rolled out for iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15 Sequoia, and the rest of this fall’s updates. The fourth developer beta should arrive in a few weeks, and it’s fairly likely to coincide with the first betas Apple offers to the full public (though the less-stable developer-only betas became significantly more public last year when Apple stopped requiring people to pay for a developer account to access them).

Many of the new update’s features are present and available for testing, including cosmetic updates and under-the-hood improvements. But none of Apple’s much-hyped Apple Intelligence features are available for testing in any form. MacRumors Reports Settings menus for Apple Intelligence features have appeared in the Xcode simulator for current versions of iOS 18, but so far, those settings still appear to be non-functional placeholders that don’t actually do anything.

That could change soon; Apple did say the first wave of Apple Intelligence features would be available “this summer,” and I’d bet a little money on the first being available in a public beta build later this month. But the current state of the beta confirms that. Reporting Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggested that Apple was “taken aback” by the tech world’s intense interest in generative AI.

Even when they arrive, Apple Intelligence features will be available gradually. Some features will be available before others—Gurman Recently Reported That new Siri, in particular, might not be available for testing until January and might not actually be ready to launch until sometime in early 2025. The first wave of features will only work in US English, and only relatively recent Apple hardware will be able to use most of them. For now, that means iPads and Macs with an M-series chip, or the iPhone 15 Pro, though presumably this year’s new crop of Pro and non-Pro iPhones will all be Apple Intelligence-compatible.

Apple’s relatively slow rollout of generative AI features isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Just look at Microsoft, which has been repeatedly burned by its willingness to bring AI-powered features to its Bing search engine, Edge browser, and Windows operating system as quickly as possible. Windows 11’s Recall feature, a massive database of screenshots and text that tracks everything users do on their PCs, was announced and then delayed multiple times after security researchers and other testers demonstrated how it could put users’ personal data at risk.