How to Use Apple Intelligence on iPhone (2025) – 10 Game Changing Features You Need to Know

What if your iPhone could do a lot more than it’s intended to do? Apple, with its AI system, makes the iPhone a lot smarter. Integrated with iOS 18, it brings smart features like Writing Tools, Visual Intelligence, Genmoji, and a more capable Siri, while keeping your data private with secure on-device processing.

Apple Intelligence isn’t just a fancy feature, but a major leap in how you use your device. With Apple Intelligence, you can do things like compose an email, edit photos, and make photo memories, without even lifting a finger. 

In this guide, you will learn how to use Apple Intelligence on iPhone. We will give you real-life examples of all of its features, its pros, and cons. We will also discuss what you can expect in the upcoming update. So, let’s get started.

What Is Apple Intelligence?

Apple Intelligence brings a set of AI features to iPhone and other Apple devices. It’s Apple’s take on AI features introduced by competitors. The brand introduced various features with Apple intelligence, like:

1. Writing tools
2. Mail features
3. New Photos app
4. Smarter Siri, and more

These features cater to users’ needs. This makes user’s experience better with the product. Apple Intelligence works across all the devices in the ecosystem with seamless integration.

Unlike the competition, Apple Intelligence uses on-device processing, ensuring the privacy of the user’s data. 

Apple announced Apple Intelligence last year at WWDC 2024 for all Apple devices and came to devices later in the fall. You can get Apple Intelligence on iPhone 15 Pro and newer devices, running on iOS 18 or a higher version. 

How to Enable Apple Intelligence on iPhone?

Apple Intelligence is not available for all the supported iPhones and iPads. This part of the guide discusses how you can enable Apple Intelligence on your iPhone or iPad.

Supported Devices (iPhone or iPad)

Apple Intelligence works on iPhone 15 Pro and later models. Here is a list of all the iPhones that support Apple Intelligence:

• iPhone 15 Pro
• iPhone 15 Pro Max
• iPhone 16
• iPhone 16 Plus
• iPhone 16 Pro
• iPhone 16 Pro Max
• iPhone 16e

These are the iPads that support Apple Intelligence:

• iPad Mini A17 Pro
• iPad Air M1 or later
• iPad Pro M1 or later

System Requirements

To enable Apple Intelligence, your device must meet the following requirements:

1. First, you must have a device from the list mentioned above. 
2. Your iPhone must be on iOS 18 or a later version. If you have an iPad, then install iPadOS 18 on it.
3. You need a Wi-Fi connection to download support for Apple Intelligence.
4. You need at least 8GB of free storage on your iPhone.

Step-by-Step Guide to Enable Apple Intelligence

If your iPhone meets all the requirements mentioned above, then you can follow these steps to enable Apple Intelligence on your iPhone/iPad-

• Launch the Settings app on your iPhone/iPad.
• Now, here tap on Apple Intelligence & Siri.

• After this, turn on the toggle next to Apple Intelligence to enable it. 
• Wait till your iPhone downloads the support for all Apple Intelligence tools.

Using Apple Intelligence: Real Examples

Apple Intelligence for iPhone is handy. Personally, I find it useful for various tasks, be it writing emails or proofreading a text I am sending. Let’s see all the features Apple Intelligence has and how you can use them.

1. Writing Tools

Writing tools are one of the best features of Apple intelligence. They work their magic with written content by proofreading it and even rewriting it. You can change the style of the written content, and you can also make Writing Tools write content for you. 

Writing Tools works with apps like Apple Notes, Messages, Mail, and even third-party apps. Let’s see how this works:

1. Open the Notes app on your phone and open the note you want to edit.
2. Select the part of the text you want to edit. 
3. Now, tap on the Writing Tools icon in the menu that appears. 
4. This will launch the Writing Tools menu.

5. You will now get the following options:
   • Proofread- Use this option to fix all the mistakes in the text. 
   • Rewrite- Use this option to rewrite the complete text. 
   • Friendly, Professional, Concise-  Changes the tone of the text as per the option selected. 
   • Summary- Summarizes the content. 
   • Key Points- Break down the content into key points. 
   • List- Makes a list from the content. 
   • Table- Converts content into a table form. 
   • Compose- You can make writing tools compose anything with just a prompt. 
6. You can select any option you want to, but for now, let’s go with Summary.
7. This will generate a summary of the text.

2. Visual Intelligence (Works only on iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro series)

The next feature that we have is Visual Intelligence. This is nothing but just a fancy name for Google Lens. You can click photos of things in your surroundings and search them on the internet, or even ask questions related to them. 

This feature only works with iPhones having the camera control button, i.e., iPhone 16 series and iPhone 16 Pro series. Follow these steps to use Visual Intelligence:

1. Press and hold the Camera Control button to launch Visual Intelligence. 
2. Now, point the camera at the object you want to search on the internet.

3. Click a photo by tapping on the Shutter button.
4. Once you do this, your iPhone will show you similar results from the internet. 

3. Smarter Mail

If you use the Mail app on your iPhone, then it’s a lot better now. Mail comes with various advanced features, including:

1. Priority Mail- The Mail app will show you all the mails that require your attention at the top. 
2. Mail Summary- You can get a summary for the whole mail and even the mail thread. You can understand the context without going through the whole mail. 
3. Smart Replies- AI can auto-generate replies, so you don’t have to waste your time typing emails. 

To use these features within the Mail app, follow these steps:

1. Launch the Mail app on your iPhone. 
2. Now, open the email you want to summarize and reply to. 
3. At the top, you will get this option called Summarise; tap on it.

4. This will give you a summary of the mail. 
5. To generate a smart reply, tap on the Reply button.
6. Then tap on Reply.

7. You will now see smart replies for the mail; you can choose them to reply to the mail.

4. Reduce Interruptions: Focus Mode

iPhone with Apple Intelligence now gets a new focus mode called Reduce Interruptions. This focus mode uses AI to analyze the notifications you get.

It silences all the unwanted notifications and only alerts you of notifications that are urgent and require your attention.

To turn on this focus mode, follow these steps:

1. Swipe down from the top to open Control Center. 
2. Now, tap on the Focus option.

3. You will see all the focus modes now. 
4. Tap on Reduce Interruptions to enable it.

5. Transcriptions (Notes, Voice Memos, Voicemail)

With Apple Intelligence, you can get transcriptions of your voice recordings in the Voice Memos app and the Notes app. This can also transcribe your voicemails so you don’t have to hear them whole. Here’s how this works-

1. Launch the Voice Memos app on your iPhone. 
2. Now, tap on this Red button to start the recording.

3. Once the recording is done, tap on Stop button. 
4. Now open the recording on the app. 
5. After this, tap on this icon in the bottom left corner.

6. Once you do this, you will get the transcription for your text.

6. Genmoji

Genmoji lets you create your own Emoji, which you can use in your conversations. It works with Apple native apps and all the third-party apps, including Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. To create a Genmoji, follow these steps:

1. Open any app on your iPhone that uses keyboards. For example, WhatsApp. 
2. Now, open any chat. 
3. On the keyboard, tap on the Emoji icon.

4. Now, tap on Genmoji.
5. You will see all the suggestions that you can use for image generation.
6. To generate emojis with text, tap on the text field at the bottom. 
7. Now, let’s give a prompt, for example- ‘A tiger wearing goggles’.

8. Wait for a few seconds, and Genmoji will generate the emojis. 

7. Image Playground

With Image Playground, you can generate images from a text prompt. Image playground generates images in various art styles like illustration, sketch, and more. You can even upload other photos for reference, like a photo of your friend.

So let’s see how this works:

1. Open the Image Playground app on your phone. 
2. Now, tap on the Style option, and you will see these styles:
   • Animation
   • Illustration
   • Sketch

3. Select any of the styles from the above to continue.
4. You can now select any option from the suggestions in the image generation. 
5. To generate an image using the text prompt, tap on the text field at the bottom.

6. Now, type a prompt, for example, let’s say ‘Tiger riding a motorbike’.
7. Image Playground will now generate the image. 
8. Here are the results that I got from my prompt.

8. New Photos App

The Photos app brings a lot of new features with AI integration. For instance:

1. Memories: You can create memories of your photos with some background sound. 
2. Advanced Search: You can now search for any photo based on the scene in it. Not only this, you can even search for the video based on a particular scene in it. For example, here I searched for ‘Leopard in Zoo’ and it showed me all the similar results

3. Clean Up: You can remove unwanted objects from your photos using the Clean Up tool in the Photos app. 

Let’s see how you can use the clean up tool to clear objects from images:

1. Open the Photos app and then open the photo from which you want to remove the object. 
2. Now, tap on this edit button at the bottom right corner.

3. After this, tap on Clean Up. 
4. Now, select the object you want to remove.

5. This will remove the object from the image.

9. Smarter Siri + ChatGPT Integration

Siri is now way better with ChatGPT interaction (at least that’s what Apple says). Last year, with iOS 18, Apple made a lot of changes to Siri, including:

1. New Design: Siri is now revamped. Instead of seeing a bluish icon at the bottom, you will now get a glowing light around the edge of your screen when you activate Siri. 
2. Type to Siri: Not just voice commands, but you can now type to Siri for all the actions. For this, double-tap on the bottom bar, and this will activate it.
3. Product Knowledge: Siri is now aware of all Apple Products. If you are using an iPhone, it will know how you can perform certain actions or make certain settings. For instance, if I ask Siri: How do I turn on True Tone display, here’s the response I get.

4. On-screen Awareness: Siri can now recognize your screen. For example, here I have this map open up, and if I just command Siri to ‘Add this to Contact Card’, here’s what it does:

5. Better Language Understanding: You can now fix mistakes mid-statement. This makes communicating with Siri much better. If you make a mistake while giving a voice prompt, then you can just say the correct command, and Siri will understand it. 
6. ChatGPT Integration: ChatGPT is now integrated into Siri. You can now command ChatGPT to do anything like compose a poem or create a travel itinerary for you.

Note- Features like personal context and actions across apps are still in the development phase. Though Apple promises a lot of features with Siri, they are still unreleased, and Apple will release them by 2026.

10. Safari Webpage Summary

Safari now displays the summary of the webpage. So if you are reading an article/blog online, then you can get quick info about it in seconds. Let me show you how this works:

1. Open the Safari browser on your phone. 
2. Now visit a website. 
3. Once the site loads, tap on this icon next to the address bar.

4. Now, tap on the Show Reader option.
5. After this, tap on Summary.

6. Now, this will give you the summary of the whole web page.  

Is It Worth It? (Pros & Cons)

Pros

1. Writing tools are great for quick correction and text generation.
2. Visual Intelligence can come in handy when you need to get information about something you see. 
3. Siri can now handle requests much better.
4. You can create custom emojis that work even with third-party applications. 
5. On-device processing makes it great for privacy.

Cons

1. Affects battery life 
2. Takes up a major part of your storage (especially if you have a base variant iPhone). 
3. It can take a toll on the performance of your device
4. Features are still experimental (and can be a hit or miss)
5. Features like Visual Intelligence are only available for newer iPhone models (iPhone 16 or later models).

What’s Coming Next?

With iOS 26, Apple will make its AI more advanced. There will be a bunch of whole new Apple Intelligence features that we will see once this update rolls out to the public. 

1) Live Translation

Apple Intelligence will now support live translation for messages, audio calls, and even FaceTime calls. Users can translate texts live for multilingual conversations. Not only this, but FaceTime will now show translated captions while the speakers speak in their native language. On the phone calls, you will get spoken translations through AI.

2) More Features in Visual Intelligence

Visual Intelligence will also become more advanced with iOS 18. Earlier, Visual Intelligence could only search for clicked photos.

But now, users can use visual intelligence to search across apps (like on screenshots). You can ask questions and even add events to your calendar.

3) Intelligent Actions in Shortcuts

The Shortcuts app will include actions. This will make it easier for you to access Apple Intelligence. You can automate tasks like summarizing text, generating images, or even writing a to-do list on its own.

4) ChatGPT Styles in Image Playground

Image Playground will include ChatGPT styles for image generation in the upcoming update. Users can upload photos of other people to generate art. You can also use emojis for the image generation.

5) Call Screening

A very useful feature that will be coming to iPhones with iOS 18 is call screening. If spammers and unknown numbers disturb you a lot, then this feature is going to be a lifesaver.

When you get a call from an unknown number, the caller has to tell their details (like their name). Your phone will ring only when the caller shares their information; otherwise, it will not.

Note- These features are available with iOS 26 developer beta, but they are unstable. For instance, call screening works, but sometimes it will notify you of the call even though it was spam.

Conclusion

Apple Intelligence is available on iPhone—and it’s worth trying. It offers various features, from writing assistance to visual search and more.

If your iPhone supports it, enable Apple Intelligence. You will for sure love trying all the features that you get with it. Personally, I’m loving the Writing Tools feature—it makes everything from emails to notes so much easier. I’m also really excited to see what new features Apple will roll out next with the iOS 26 update.

Got a favorite feature already? Or curious about how something works? Drop your thoughts or questions in the comments below—I’d love to hear from you!

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