Apple Releases Third Beta of iOS 18.1 with New Clean Up Tool in Photos
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Today, Apple released another round of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia betas, including the eighth iterations of the primary 18.0 and 15.0 releases, plus the exclusive iOS/iPadOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1 betas featuring its new Apple Intelligence features.
While the mainstream betas are available for all Apple devices that will support iOS/iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia, Apple has limited the iOS/iPadOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1 betas to only those devices that support Apple Intelligence — that’s the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and Macs and iPads that use an M-series chip. These are also developer betas only. Public betas and support for more devices will undoubtedly show up eventually, likely after iOS 18.0 et al are released to the public next month.
Unsurprisingly, the eighth betas of iOS 18 don’t include any significant changes, as Apple is in polish-and-fix mode at this point. With the final release less than a month away, everything in iOS 18 (and iPadOS 18 and macOS 15) is locked down at this point.
However, with iOS 18.1, Apple has been taking baby steps into Apple Intelligence, slowly adding new features. The first iOS 18.1 betas had limited Apple Intelligence features, mostly confined to writing tools and notification summaries; however, today’s third iOS 18.1 beta adds at least one significant new feature.
Clean Up Photos
There’s still no sign of Image Playground or Genmoji, but iOS 18.1 beta 3 adds at least one new photo-related tool in the ability to clean up objects from photos.
As the name suggests, Clean Up will help remove unwanted objects in a photo via AI image recognition. Users can select the object they want to erase by brushing over it, drawing a circle around it, or simply tapping it. It works on all photos, regardless of whether they were taken on an iPhone, shot using an old-school digital camera, or even scanned in from hard-copy prints.
Apple says the Clean Up feature uses multiple machine learning models to detect distracting objects, determine where the edges are, and replace them. It can even remove shadows and reflections as part of the process.
While the concept isn’t new — Google introduced a similar Magic Eraser feature on its Pixel phones years ago and more recently expanded that to all Google Photos users — it’s definitely a nice thing to have built into the iPhone Photos app for folks who prefer to keep their libraries in iCloud instead of handing them over to Google.
Expanded Summaries
The earlier iOS 18.1 betas brought summarized notifications for Mail and Messages, letting Apple Intelligence distill an email or text down to its key points so you can get an idea of what it’s about at a glance.
Now, iOS 18.1 beta 3 expands that to all messaging notifications, regardless of the app. This means you’ll be able to get summaries of notifications from WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Gmail, and much more.
Apple notes in the Settings app in iOS 18.1 that “Summary accuracy may vary based on content,” so it’s unclear how well this will work without developer buy-in. The iPhone can only read the content of the notification to generate its summary, not necessarily the full text of whatever email or message it’s trying to summarize. Nevertheless, it could be helpful for multiple notifications in group chats since it can gather them all into a single summary of the entire conversation thread.
However, notification summaries will be entirely optional. They’re enabled through a new option in the Notifications section of the Settings app, so you’ll be able to choose which apps you want to receive summaries for.
More to Come…
Some aspects of Apple Intelligence, such as a smarter and more personalized Siri, aren’t expected to arrive until early next year, likely as part of iOS 18.4. However, there’s every reason to believe that Image Playground and Genmoji will find their way into iOS 18.1 at some point before the final release.
ChatGPT integration is another one that’s on the short-term radar. While it may not make the cut for iOS 18.1, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook told investors earlier this month that it’s still on deck for the end of 2024, which means we should at least see it showing up in iOS 18.2 or iOS 18.3.
