iOS 18.1 has just been released to the public, bringing with it your first taste of Apple Intelligence features. But, as exciting as it is to have AI on your iPhone at long last, the upcoming iOS 18.2 update will land with a bunch of more exciting features — like ChatGPT and Visual Intelligence.
At the moment, iOS 18.2 is only available in developer beta, with a public beta likely arriving in the coming weeks. But as for the public version, Apple all but confirmed in a press release that the masses will be able to download and enjoy iOS 18.2 at some point in December.
The press release is mainly devoted to marking the official launch of Apple Intelligence. While it didn’t name iOS 18.2 by name, Apple did say more features will be rolling out in December — and named exactly which new features we’re going to get.
iOS 18.2 will be especially exciting for iPhone 16 owners, as it will be the official launch of Apple’s Visual Intelligence feature. This AI vision feature is exclusive to iPhone 16, and combines Apple Intelligence with the camera — letting you scan and analyze everything around you.
Whether you’re looking to translate text, find out more about objects you encounter, look up details for different businesses, or even scan QR codes, Visual Intelligence can help. And it’s just a quick tap-and-hold away thanks to the iPhone 16’s Camera Control button.
Writing Tools, which launched with iOS 18.1, is also getting an upgrade in 18.2. Part of this involves the ability to give the Apple Intelligence prompts to “describe specific changes they want to apply to their text”. That could include things like adding “more dynamic action words” to a resume, or making party invitations read like a poem.
Writing Tools will also be able to integrate with ChatGPT, opening up a wealth of information and features that wouldn’t otherwise be available — like document and image recognition. All without having to swap to a different app to access it.
You can’t add ChatGPT to Writing Tools without bringing ChatGPT itself to the platform, and iOS 18.2 will have various features from OpenAI’s chatbot arrive on iPhones. That includes integration with both Siri and Visual Intelligence, with the goal being using ChatGPT’s skills and experience to do what Apple’s AI currently can’t handle.
Finally, iOS 18.2 will bring multiple AI image generation tools to iPhones. The main avenue for this will be the Image Playground app, which offers a familiar AI image generation experience — using written prompts to create images out of thin air.
There’s also Genmoji, which uses generative AI to create custom emojis in the Messages app, and Image Wand — a sketch-to-image feature for the Notes app. ChatGPT will also be able to generate images for you, should you want something a little different.
While waiting for all these features to turn up on your iPhone, you can instead enjoy the new Apple Intelligence options that are part of iOS 18.1 like a more organized Mail app, the smarter Siri and Clean Up photo editing.
More from Tom's Guide
- iOS 18.1 is finally here — 5 Apple Intelligence features you need to try first
- I tried all new Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.1 — here’s the best (and worst)
- How to activate Apple Intelligence on your iPhone, iPad and Mac now
