Apple Intelligence may be absent from initial iOS 18 rollout: Report

Apple’s eagerly awaited artificial intelligence upgrade dubbed Apple Intelligence could miss its planned rollout with the new suite of iPhone 16s and its operating system iOS 18 in September. 

Instead, Apple Intelligence will likely arrive a few weeks later in October, as part of a follow-up software update, according to a July 28 report for Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources close to the matter.

Despite the delay, the technology giant still plans to make Apple Intelligence available to software developers as early as the week starting July 29, with the release of iOS 18.1 and iPadOS 18.1 beta versions.

Apple typically doesn’t release previews of follow-up updates until the initial version of the new software is released publicly.

The anonymous sources told Bloomberg that the delay of the new operating system stemmed from concerns over the stability of Apple Intelligence across the iPhone and iPad.

The delay would give developers more opportunity to work out any potential bugs ahead of time.

Cointelegraph contacted Apple but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

The California-based tech firm announced the launch of Apple Intelligence in partnership with OpenAI on June 10.

Apple Intelligence will feature a “seamlessly integrated” version of ChatGPT across its new operating systems.

Apple Intelligence will offer iPhone, Macbook, and iPad users a suite of new features including an enhanced version of Apple’s voice-assistant Siri, the ability to summarize long pieces of text and audio as well as generate detailed custom graphics.

Notably, Apple’s voice assistant, Siri, will relay user questions to ChatGPT when necessary. The new feature is powered by GPT-4o, OpenAI’s latest iteration of ChatGPT.

While Apple says its new Intelligence software is “designed to protect [...] privacy at every step,” X owner Elon Musk has threatened to ban all Apple devices at his companies should Apple integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT into its iPhone, iPad and Mac operating systems.

“If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, then Apple devices will be banned at my companies. That is an unacceptable security violation,” Musk said in a June 10 post to X.