hen we reviewed the iPhone 16 Pro last year, Apple Intelligence was barely available. Since then, the iPhone 16 series has benefitted from several new features, apps and improvements. Some (or most) of them were Apple Intelligence features that were teased back at WWDC 2024, months before the iPhone 16 Pro launched.
AI features weren’t the only changes this time around, with the iPhone 16 getting an entirely new button. The so-called Camera Control wasn’t just a simple app shortcut, but an elaborate multifunction button that offered a haptic half-press and the ability to swipe across to adjust camera settings and options.
Managing Editor Cherlynn Low said we were still ”waiting on Apple Intelligence” in our initial review. Now, as we hit iOS 18.4, was it worth the wait?
iOS 18 and Apple Intelligence so far
Apple Intelligence was late, arriving as part of iOS 18.1 back in October 2024. Initial generative AI features included writing tools like proofreading and rewriting, as well as text summaries and live transcription for phone calls and voice notes in the Notes app. A few months later, iOS 18.2 gave us the Apple Intelligence features that made most of the headlines when first announced at WWDC. That included ChatGPT integration, AI image generation in Image Playgrounds and Genmoji.
Starting with iOS 18.1, one of the most controversial Apple Intelligence features is actually my favorite: Notification Summaries. It’s a good attempt at taming the wild west of countless group chats across multiple messaging apps, calendar reminders, Substack pings and everything else.
You don’t need to update every individual app for Notification Summaries to kick in. As soon as iOS 18.1 landed, my messy WhatsApp chats were streamlined. I thought it cute when my iPhone told me a friend had laughed at my comment, and suggested where we could meet and a date. That was distilled from a ten-message barrage they’d sent.
It’s not perfect, though. Apple had to clarify that notification summaries are AI-generated, and make that clearer beyond a small Apple Intelligence icon. This was after the BBC complained about multiple summaries that twisted the content of some of its headlines. I’ve also had notification summaries that incorrectly guessed the subject of a sentence or entire topic of a thread, but on the whole, it’s a useful utilization of AI smarts.
There are more natural language hooks across most of iOS 18, too. You can now search for images in the Photos app with descriptions, dates, location and more. Those natural-language smarts take on a different function with writing tools, courtesy of Apple Intelligence. Even though I’m not a particularly clean writer (hey, Cher), these writing tools are not all that useful. I haven’t used them much beyond quick email responses to work requests and events, but the ability to proofread, rewrite or check tone may prove useful to some.
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The writing tools also work inside the Voice Memos app, which can now transcribe conversations, meetings and more. Here, it helps make things more concise, with options to turn transcripts into summaries, key points, lists and even tables. If the recording is clear enough and they’re not too long, iOS 18 does well on these transcriptions. Several times, the iPhone 16 Pro straight-up declined to summarize a transcript. Why? All I got was a notification that the tools “aren’t designed to work with this type of content.”