This one’s huge: The boatload of new features in iOS 18.1

iOS 18.1 comes with a veritable boatload of big new features. The update, which is out now, brings Apple Intelligence, hearing aid support for AirPods, sleep apnea detection for Apple Watch, phone call recording and more.

Apple Intelligence features are being rolled out slowly with every new iOS update. The process is expected to take a while. This first update hits the ground running with 10 features. But that’s not all — there’s more in this update for those of us with an older iPhone or who live in the European Union.

Keep reading or watch our video on the new features in iOS 18.1.

All the new features in iOS 18.1

Table of contents: All the new features in iOS 18.1

1. First Apple Intelligence features
2. Hearing Aid support for AirPods Pro
3. Sleep Apnea detection for Apple Watch
4. Improvements to Control Center
5. Other tweaks and features

First Apple Intelligence features

The first Apple Intelligence features are here for the iPhone 15 Pro, all iPhone 16 models, all Macs and iPads with an M-series chip — and the new iPad mini.

1. Writing Tools let you proofread, change the tone of, or reformat text. It’s available anywhere that uses a standard text input — all of Apple’s apps like Notes, Mail, Messages, Safari and most third-party apps. I’ve been very impressed by its ability to restructure ordinary writing into multiple columns in a small table.
2. Notification summaries give you a single-sentence summary of a whole stack of notifications, like a busy group chat or a bunch of app notifications. You can still tap the notification stack to expand the full list of messages. It’s great for quickly seeing what’s going on.
3. Image Clean Up lets you intelligently erase objects from a picture. Open a picture, tap Edit, and select the Clean Up tool at the bottom. You can delete people from the background, remove hair from a dark shirt, objects from a wall or table and more. You can also use it to pixelate someone’s face.
4. Photo search lets you be more descriptive when searching for photos, like “Griffin wearing a hat,” or “video of Lewis playing the accordion,” or “Leander with a beard.” No more madly swiping through your entire photo library to find that one picture you’re looking for.
5. Photo Memories let you automatically generate a Memory Movie from your photos with a text prompt. In the Memories section of the new Photos app, tap Describe a memory… and type in what you want to see, like “Moments at home with my dog” and “Trip to Athens, with epic music.” You can tie together names of people in your pictures, locations, events and more. You can specify a genre of music to go along with it, too. In my testing, I found the results to be pretty great.
6. Suggested replies to messages appear above the keyboard with AI-generated responses. Just tap a suggestion to fill it in the text field — but don’t worry, it doesn’t instantly send the message. You have a chance to edit it first. It works pretty well.
7. Transcribe a recorded phone call to see who said what in a conversation. Transcriptions are also available with any voice memo added to a note in Apple Notes. The recordings are great … the transcripts, not so much right now.
8. Reduce Interruptions is a new Focus mode that judges on the fly which notifications seem important. You don’t need to manually set up who to blacklist, who to whitelist, and which apps can interrupt you. You can also enable “Intelligent Breakthrough & Silencing” on any of your existing Focuses. It’s a very easy way to set up a smarter Do Not Disturb.
9. Siri product knowledge can answer your questions about Apple products, like how to share a Wi-Fi password or how to edit your Home Screen.
10. Type to Siri by double-tapping the Home Bar. This is very useful for situations when you don’t want to talk out loud.

More Apple Intelligence features are coming later. Image Playground and Genmoji, Visual Intelligence and a smarter Siri that can take actions on your behalf and see your screen are expected in iOS 18.2, which just entered beta testing.

Hearing Aid support for AirPods Pro

If you own AirPods Pro 2, the software update will enable them to function as clinical hearing aids. Setup includes taking a clinically validated hearing test with AirPods Pro and iPhone. This enables AirPods Pro to boost the specific sounds the wearer needs.

Even better, “Your hearing profile is automatically applied to music, movies and phone calls across all your devices without needing to adjust any settings at all,” according to Dr. Sumbul Desai, vice president of health at Apple.

According to early testing, the feature works pretty well in cases of mild to moderate hearing loss — but those with a severe case should stick to traditional hearing aids.

We highly recommend you take the built-in hearing test. Most people with hearing loss don’t know it.

Sleep Apnea detection for Apple Watch

If you own an Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10 or Apple Watch Ultra 2, your watch will start collecting data overnight for possible sleep apnea. This requires 10 days of overnight sleep tracking, and it will analyze the data once every 30 days — so it won’t ring the alarm bells every day. You also will need to enable the feature in the Apple Health app after updating.

We strongly recommend you take advantage of this new Apple health feature, too. Again, lots of people who suffer from sleep apnea have no idea.

Improvements to Control Center

If you don’t want the big Connectivity widget in the iPhone’s Control Center, you can now replace it with the two or three toggles you prefer. With the addition of toggles for Satellite and AirDrop, all of them are now available as individual buttons.

If you mess up your Control Center and want to start over, you can now go to Settings > Control Center and tap Reset Control Center to get back to its default arrangement.

Other new tweaks and features in iOS 18.1

1. You can record a phone call or FaceTime audio call. Just tap the Record button in the upper left. Both people will hear, “This call will be recorded,” followed by a beep. You can find it later in Notes > Call Recordings. If you have Apple Intelligence enabled, you’ll also see a transcript of the conversation.
2. On an iPhone 16 with Camera Control, you can now switch between the front and rear cameras from the Cameras toggle.
3. You can share what songs you’re listening to on Apple Music through your TikTok. Tap and hold on a song, playlist or album (or tap any ⋯ button) and tap Share. Pick TikTok from the share sheet and choose whether to share it as a video, photo or message.
4. Capture Spatial photos and videos using a new Spatial camera mode from the mode slider. It’s to the right, between Portrait and Panorama. Pick between photo and video using a separate toggle switch reminiscent of iOS 6.

What’s coming next in iOS 18.2

iOS 18.2, the next major revision expected in December, adds even more:

• Visually look up restaurants, events, objects and more using the camera control on the iPhone 16.
• Image Playground and Image Wand are tools in Messages, Notes and other apps for creating images.
• Genmoji lets you create custom emoji based on a description or based on a person in your Photos library.
• Integration with ChatGPT for answering general knowledge questions and writing tools.
• Apple Intelligence support for English localized to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom.
• Daily sudoku puzzles for subscribers of Apple News+.
• You can easily set your default browser, messaging app, password manager and more in Settings > Apps > Default Apps.
• Apple Podcasts sorts your subscribed shows by category.

More features of iOS 18

Check out some of the other great new features in iOS 18, in addition to 18.1:

And check out the full list for even more.

This article on iOS 18.1 new features was originally published on October 26, 2024. It has been updated with the latest information.