It’s time for Apple to put its money where its mouth is. Apple Intelligence, Tim Cook’s AI attempt, has finally arrived – inside the new iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 updates released this morning. Kinda. For one thing, Apple’s pushed out an incomplete suite of Intelligence features, set to be completed by December. For another, only red-blooded Yanks can access the new features for the time being.
How to download and install Apple Intelligence in South Africa
Don’t worry. That’s not a permanent situation. Apple has no qualms about anyone with a supported device simply switching their region to the United States and simultaneously updating their language settings to United States English (US) – currently the only method for accessing the new features from unsupported countries like South Africa. Before you do that, you’ll need to download the right update for your iPhone, iPad, or MacBook.
To do that, head to Settings > General > Software Update > Tap on iOS 18.1 / iPadOS 18.1 / macOS Sequoia 15.1. It’s worth mentioning that users can only access the new Apple Intelligence features if they’re rocking an iPhone 15 Pro and up – or an iPad/MacBook housing an ‘M’ chipset inside of it. Users without the necessary hardware can still download the respective updates, but cannot experience any AI.
Once you’ve changed your region and language settings and downloaded the latest system OS, a new ‘Apple Intelligence & Siri‘ tab should appear on the home page of the Settings app. Click it, and toggle the new Apple Intelligence switch. You’ll then need to join a waitlist. Judging by this Reddit post, the wait can vary for different users. Some recorded wait times of between two to four hours, while we got in after roughly ten minutes of waiting.
A (somewhat) intelligent Apple
If you were hoping for features like image generation, genmoji, or support for South African English, you must wait until Apple Intelligence completely rolls out in December as part of the iOS 18.2 / iPadOS 18.2 updates. For now, the feature set is limited, though we’re still in the process of giving it a proper run-through. You can expect more on Stuff’s thoughts later. If you’d like to jump in early, here are the features currently available:
- Writing Tools – Have Apple Intelligence proofread, rewrite, and summarise text nearly everywhere, including Mail, Messages, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps.
- Upgraded Siri – A smarter, more conversational, and human-like Siri is now available allowing it to understand context, building off previous requests. Users can now also chat with Siri through text.
- AI in Photos – The in-house Photos app has received a major overhaul. ‘Natural language search’ lets users search for photos and videos by simply describing what they’re looking for. The new ‘Clean Up’ tool can instantly fix that dodgy background of an otherwise perfect picture. Finally, there’s ‘Memories’, allowing users to create Memory movies by simply typing up a description.
- Notification Summaries – Apple Intelligence can drown out all the nonsense notifications and only show the important stuff – such as same-day invitations in the Mail app, or a text reminding the user to fetch their child from school. There is also an option to reduce interruptions in Focus mode.
- Audio Summaries – Within the Phone and Notes apps, users can now record, transcribe, and summarise entire audio clips.
If you aren’t all that confident in your abilities to get the most out of the new AI, many South African iStore outlets across Gauteng, KZN, and the Western Cape will be hosting various free Apple Intelligence training sessions to help customers get to grips. You’ll need to book ahead, which you can do right here.