{"id":214701,"date":"2025-06-26T02:15:18","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T02:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/214701\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T02:15:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T02:15:18","slug":"ios-26-all-the-new-apple-intelligence-features","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/214701\/","title":{"rendered":"iOS 26: All the New Apple Intelligence Features"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the new Liquid Glass design taking the spotlight, Apple didn’t spend a ton of time discussing Apple Intelligence<\/a> at WWDC 2025, nor was there a mention of the missing Siri<\/a> features. \u200cApple Intelligence\u200c wasn’t a focus, but Apple is continuing to build out \u200cApple Intelligence\u200c in iOS 26<\/a>. There are new features, and updates to some existing features.<\/p>\n

\"iOS
We’ve outlined what’s new with \u200cApple Intelligence\u200c below.<\/p>\n

Live Translation<\/p>\n

Live Translation works in Messages, FaceTime<\/a>, and Phone. It auto translates both spoken and text conversations if the people conversing do not speak the same language.<\/p>\n

\"messages
In a Messages conversation with someone, tap on the person’s name and then toggle on the Automatically Translate option. From there, you can select a language that you want to translate your conversations to. Language packs vary in size, but they are around 900MB.<\/p>\n

\"ios
Language options include English (US), English (UK), Chinese (Mandarin, Simplified), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (Spain). You can set both the translate to and the translate from languages.<\/p>\n

The messages that you send to someone will show up in both your language and the translated language on your iPhone<\/a>, while the person on the other end sees the message only in their language. Messages they respond with will show both their language and the translated language.<\/p>\n

\"messages
Live Translation works similarly in the Phone and \u200cFaceTime\u200c apps, and it needs to be turned on for each conversation and language assets need to be downloaded. In the Phone app, Live Translation uses actual voice translation with an AI voice to translate spoken content quickly and efficiently, but you can also see a transcript of the conversation.<\/p>\n

\"ios
In \u200cFaceTime\u200c, you’ll see translated captions for speech, so you’ll hear what the person is saying in their own language while also being able to read live captions with a translation.<\/p>\n

\"ios
To use these features, both participants should have Live Translation, so an Apple Intelligence-enabled \u200ciPhone\u200c, iPad<\/a>, or Mac that is running the 26 series software. In Messages, though, if you have Live Translation turned on and you’re chatting with someone who has an older device, they can type in their language and you will see the translation. Your responses to them aren’t translated to their language.<\/p>\n

Onscreen Visual Intelligence<\/p>\n

In \u200ciOS 26\u200c, you can use Visual Intelligence<\/a> with content that’s on your \u200ciPhone\u200c, asking questions about what you’re seeing, looking up products, and more.<\/p>\n

\"visual
\u200cVisual Intelligence\u200c works with screenshots, so if you take a screenshot on your \u200ciPhone\u200c and tap into it, you’ll see new Ask and Image Search buttons. With Ask, you can ask ChatGPT a question about what’s in the screenshot. The image is sent to ChatGPT, and ChatGPT is able to provide a response.<\/p>\n

\"ios
Search has two features. You can send a whole screenshot to Google or another app, or you can use a Highlight to Search feature to select something specific in the screenshot. Just use a finger to draw over what you want to look up, and then swipe up to conduct a search.<\/p>\n

\"ios
You can search Google Images, Etsy, and other apps that implement support for the feature.<\/p>\n

If there’s an event in your screenshot, \u200cVisual Intelligence\u200c will pop up an “Add to Calendar” option and it can be added directly to the Calendar app. It will also automatically suggest identifications for animals, plants, sculptures, landmarks, art, and books.<\/p>\n

\"ios<\/p>\n

Wallet Order Tracking<\/p>\n

Apple Wallet can scan your emails to identify order and tracking information, adding it to the Orders section of the Wallet app. The feature works for all of your purchases, even those not made using Apple Pay<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"ios
Automatic order detection can be enabled in the Wallet app settings under Order Tracking. Once turned on, you can see your orders by opening up Wallet, tapping on the “…” button, and choosing the Orders section.<\/p>\n

Tapping into an order will provide you with the merchant name, order number, and tracking number, if available. You can also see the relevant email that the order information came from, and tap it to go straight to the message in the Mail app.<\/p>\n

Image Playground<\/p>\n

Apple quietly upgraded Image Playground<\/a>, and the images that it generates<\/a> using the built-in Animation, Sketch, and Illustration styles have improved. Faces and eyes look more natural, hair is more realistic, and it’s overall better at generating a cartoonish image that looks similar to a person.<\/p>\n

\"ios\u200cImage Playground\u200c in iOS 18<\/a> on left, \u200ciOS 26\u200c version on right
The change is most notable with people, but objects, food, and landscapes have improved too. We have a full \u200cImage Playground\u200c guide with more info.<\/p>\n

ChatGPT Integration<\/p>\n

Apple added ChatGPT to \u200cImage Playground\u200c, so you can use ChatGPT’s image generation tools instead of the built-in options. You’ll need a paid ChatGPT account for this, because it does take tokens to create images.<\/p>\n

\"ios
\u200cImage Playground\u200c includes suggested design styles like anime, oil painting, vector, print, and water color, but there’s also an open-ended “Any Style” option. With Any Style, ChatGPT can essentially do anything in any style, including generating realistic images.<\/p>\n

As with standard \u200c\u200cImage Playground\u200c\u200c image generation, you can make a text-based request or upload an image to ChatGPT and ask it to use that as the basis for an image. Images that you upload and text requests can be combined.<\/p>\n

Genmoji<\/p>\n

Genmoji<\/a> has been updated to support mixing two or more emoji together to create a new emoji character, plus it is integrated into \u200cImage Playground\u200c.<\/p>\n

\"ios
Emoji can be combined together and altered further with text-based descriptions, which provides a better starting base for coming up with something new.<\/p>\n

When \u200cGenmoji\u200c are added to \u200cImage Playground\u200c creations that include photos of friends or family, the \u200cGenmoji\u200c is used to dictate expression and emotion, like happy, sad, laugh, mad, shocked, thinking, thumbs up, and thumbs down.<\/p>\n

Reminders<\/p>\n

Relevant actions in an email, website, note, or other content can be identified and categorized in the Reminders app. There is a \u200cSiri\u200c Suggestions section in the Reminders app. You can tap the “+” button next to a suggestion to add it to the Reminders app, or swipe to delete it.<\/p>\n

\"ios
You will also see Reminder suggestions in apps like Mail, where you can tap to add a reminder without opening the Reminders app.<\/p>\n

Messages Poll Suggestions<\/p>\n

The Messages app supports creating polls, which is not an \u200cApple Intelligence\u200c feature. But in group chats, if there is something that’s relevant for a poll, the Messages app can suggest that you add one.<\/p>\n

\"ios
There’s also an option to set custom backgrounds in the Messages app. \u200cImage Playground\u200c integration is included, so you can generate Messages backgrounds using Apple’s image generation tools.<\/p>\n

Developer Framework<\/p>\n

There’s an \u200cApple Intelligence\u200c on-device model that’s available for developers to integrate into their apps. Apple is essentially allowing developers to use the foundation model that runs \u200cApple Intelligence\u200c to create new intelligent, offline experiences for \u200ciPhone\u200c users.<\/p>\n

\"apple
On-device models will not have any cloud API costs, making it less expensive for developers to add AI capabilities to their apps.<\/p>\n

Shortcuts<\/p>\n

Apple added new shortcuts that are powered by \u200cApple Intelligence\u200c, and there are actions for summarizing text with Writing Tools, creating images with \u200cImage Playground\u200c, generating text, and more.<\/p>\n

\"ios
Shortcuts users can add \u200cApple Intelligence\u200c models to their shortcuts, with options for on-device, ChatGPT, or Private Cloud Compute to generate responses that inform other actions in the shortcut.<\/p>\n

When creating a Shortcut, there is an \u200cApple Intelligence\u200c section that allows users to type directions into an open-ended prompt. Shortcuts can do things like pull in data from the Weather app, Calendar, and Reminders, creating a daily summary. Or there could be a shortcut that reads what you’ve written, checks for spelling and grammar errors, and then provides a short summary.<\/p>\n

Apple Watch Workout Buddy<\/p>\n

Workout Buddy is a watchOS 26<\/a> feature, but it relies on an Apple Intelligence-capable \u200ciPhone\u200c that’s running \u200ciOS 26\u200c. Workout Buddy provides motivation and insights during your workouts, and it does so by analyzing data from your current workout along with your fitness history.<\/p>\n

\"watchos
It looks at heart rate, pace, distance, Activity Rings, personal fitness milestones, and other information. An Apple Intelligence-based text-to-speech model then translates the data into actionable and useful insights. The generative AI voice was trained using voice data from Fitness+ trainers, so Workout Buddy has the ideal energy and tone for a workout. Some Workout Buddy examples:<\/p>\n

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