On October 29, Financial Connect News (edited by Shi Zhengcheng) Local time Monday, Apple Inc. announced on its U.S. official website that it has started pushing the official version of iOS 18.1 update – Apple Intelligence, which investors have been looking forward to for half a year, has finally ushered in a day for "USA English" users to go live.

In addition to Apple mobile phone users, updates for iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1 were also launched on Monday, allowing eligible tablet and computer users to synchronize with Apple AI.

It should be noted that Chinese users and a large number of non-English users globally are currently unable to use Apple AI. Apple previously revealed that this December will add localized English support for countries like the United Kingdom and Australia. Subsequent features of "Asia Vets Apple" such as Chinese, Indian English, French, German, and Japanese will be launched next year.

As for when Chinese users can use Apple AI, Cook, who just visited China last week, responded: "We are working hard to promote it. There is a very specific regulatory process behind this, we need to complete this process, and we hope to bring it to Chinese consumers as soon as possible."

For eligible overseas users, besides upgrading to the 18.1 system, they also need to "Settings" request to enable Apple Intelligence. Upon obtaining access permission, the device will download and run the Apple models required for AI.

What functions does the first batch of Apple AI have?

Apple's first step in the AI field is not particularly significant. In addition to language limitations, most features are not difficult to be replaced by other existing AI services.

After completing the system update, iPhone, iPad, and Mac will have a "system-wide AI writing assistant"—including Mail, Notes, Messages, Pages, and third-party apps.

In simple terms, users can select a paragraph and have Apple's AI rewrite it in a "professional, concise, or friendly" tone.

Users can also insert a paragraph in a presentation, allowing the AI to summarize it into several key points.

In addition, it can also summarize and consolidate with one click, proofread text, and provide suggestions for word structure.

In the "Photos" app, not only the text search function is more intelligent, but the major update lies in the cleaning tools. By selecting unwanted people or objects in the image, they can be removed with one click.

Another update this time is the email summary function that has been repeatedly recommended by Cook. "Priority messages" appear at the top of the inbox, showing the most urgent emails, such as lunch invitations or boarding pass information for that day. Users can directly click on the email to view the summary and use AI to compose smart replies.

There are a few remaining functions to mention briefly: "Notification Summary" allows users to quickly browse stacked notifications, highlighting key details; the new "Reduce Disturbance" focus mode will only display information that requires immediate user attention; the Notes and Phone apps can record, transcribe, and summarize information (Note: The other party will receive a notification when recording begins).

For Chinese users, although they cannot use AI yet, new features such as call recording, camera control, and AirPods hearing assistance can still be utilized.

Teaser for 'December will be better'

Well aware that these AI features are not groundbreaking for Apple, they also explicitly announced on Monday that in the December system update, more AI features will be launched.

Apple's 'promises' for December include the Image Wand - which can turn rough sketches into 'pleasant images,' or generate images based on the context of the surrounding area; the writing tool will also become more powerful, in addition to the current few buttons, users can inform AI about specific modifications they want to make to the text. The significant update for the iPhone 16 series this year - the camera control button will also introduce AI visual interaction features, including finding information about nearby restaurants and interacting with them.

The more important update is that users can choose to use ChatGPT in writing tools and Siri, directly using the most advanced multimodal chatbot in the apple app.

Of course, these features have already been pushed through the 18.2 system of the beta version, so it's not a secret. Well-known leaker Mark Gurman, who is using the 18.2 beta system, remarked that this version will be a major update. If Apple could release these features two months early in September, the current discussion about "apple asia vets" would be completely different.