iOS 18.1 Beta 1 ― Bug Fixes, Changes, and Improvements

[Xoterin]

Here are my Week 1 18.1 takeaways:
- autocorrect appears to be worse
- I was clicking an emoji to add to a text, but it wasn’t working (or so I thought). Turns out the recipient (on 17.5) received tapbacks on random messages 😂 Oops.
- Conversational Siri does well, however, she cannot take me to someone’s location if I ask. This goes something like “where is Sue?” “Can you get me directions to Sue?” Directions will usually be to some random place 948 miles away.
- My phone is really hot, all the time. Even after a few days on the update. At some points, it’s too hot to pick up.
- Email summaries are decent. They don’t automatically summarize emails to my gmail account, though. I have to manually click summarize.
- Email summaries don’t always understand the full context (like my home office hours are changing. Monday has different hours from Tuesday - Friday but it lumped it under 8-5 when it’s actually 10-6.
- Text summaries are okay. I like that the summary includes info from multiple topics. I laugh every time I see “sent multiple photos of object”.
- Safari summaries are good, but way too hard to get to.
- Smart replies on Mac are way better than smart replies on iPhone. Seriously. The iPhone ones are completely worthless.
- Call recordings work great, but I thought they are supposed to be transcribed? Mine aren’t. No I didn’t look for a setting.
- Lastly, apparently a lot of “new” Siri features are old and I’m just discovering them 😂😂😂 Like sending screenshots. When sending links, it shows the post preview, but doesn’t actually send the preview.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

To an extend I agree. I dont think the general public really cares about AI. I take the small sample of my family and extended family, and no one cares about it. They sure wouldn't upgrade their phones for AI. My bother in law and myself are the only ones that are tech people, and while I am interested I am not sold its worth seeking a new phone to have.

I think AI can be useful in some cases, but for day to day I don't see it being revolutionary. To me making Siri smarter is the only thing that the general public would really care about from AI. Even then, it's still not the best. It's got a long way to go.

I think we’re underestimating how many people are going to find things like email summaries and call recording/transcriptions very useful.
Not to mention, if Siri does actually work better eventually, that will be a benefit to most regular consumers, even if they don’t necessarily know it’s AI.

 

[drak22]

I’ve had some focusing issues also. I’d report it.

My suspicion is that the camera Focus Pixels are having issues in areas where there is little to no contrast, such as the sky. given how small the seaplane was compared to the Ray of the sky the problem still presented itself. I’ll experiment on that.

Yesterday I reinstalled the iOS 18.1 beta with the ipsw file, and the camera problems disappeared. So in my case at least, it seems that they were due to a bad installation of the OTA update.

 

[drak22]

ios 18.1 looks the same as ios 18 beta 4 v2. They work exactly the same for me.
I'm assuming the ios 18.1 beta will roll out in tandem with the ios 18.0 betas until release, at which point they'll go on a fast track beta cycle for non-AI devices and release it in late October or early November.

 

[TheBMacAttack]

I think we’re underestimating how many people are going to find things like email summaries and call recording/transcriptions very useful.
Not to mention, if Siri does actually work better eventually, that will be a benefit to most regular consumers, even if they don’t necessarily know it’s AI.

This Siri I 100% agree with. I said this at some point yesterday. Siri is what people care about in AI, as it stands now is beta 18.1, most people won’t see that has much different than what they have. How it develops over the next year will be what consumers want.

This was my point to all of that. Most of the average consumers buying iPhones don’t read up on tech news. They just decide they need a new phone every few years when theirs doesn’t do what they want it to. They may get wind of a few new features, but like my wife she pays attention to the highlights of a release. Does it sound good to her, sure then she will upgrade. The 16s release won’t be released with AI on it most likely, and the average consumer didn’t watch the WWDC keynote about AI. So until Siri is smart like those demos, most people won’t care much.

 

[gwhizkids]

I think we’re underestimating how many people are going to find things like email summaries and call recording/transcriptions very useful.
Not to mention, if Siri does actually work better eventually, that will be a benefit to most regular consumers, even if they don’t necessarily know it’s AI.

Exactly. We don’t need AI to do profound things. We need AI to do mundane things.

 

[d245770q]

ios 18.1 looks the same as ios 18 beta 4 v2. They work exactly the same for me.
I'm assuming the ios 18.1 beta will roll out in tandem with the ios 18.0 betas until release, at which point they'll go on a fast track beta cycle for non-AI devices and release it in late October or early November.

I wouldn’t assume anything… nobody knows anything!

 

[dk001]

I wonder how much of this functionality 3rd party devs will be able to leverage or utilize. Other than testing, I use very few stock Apple apps IRL. If this AppInt pans out, seeing it in 3rd party apps would be a potential use boost.

 

[drak22]

I wouldn’t assume anything… nobody knows anything!

We don't know, it's true, but iOS 18.1 will be released for all models, whether or not they have AI, on the same day. It's not a minor version, like a possible 18.0.x that could be released for specific models as has happened in the past. That's why it makes sense for the 18.1 betas to go hand in hand with the 18.0 betas, because Apple is also interested in 18.1 having the greatest possible stability in order to be able to test AI with the maximum guarantees.

 

[gwhizkids]

I wonder how much of this functionality 3rd party devs will be able to leverage or utilize. Other than testing, I use very few stock Apple apps IRL. If this AppInt pans out, seeing it in 3rd party apps would be a potential use boost.

The writing stuff is available anywhere there’s a text box. The Siri stuff (coming later) can be used by any app that elects to implement App Intents in their apps. From watching the WWDC videos, implementing the app intents is non-trivial. So I would expect slow uptake especially for smaller developers. Some, though, like Carrotweather and David Smith (Sleep++ and WidgetSmith) will likely embrace it enthusiastically.

 

[eoblaed]

I wonder how accurate this could be? Mine is still indexing.. it may "index" like this until the next beta. I install new betas in minutes of release

Does anyone know if one can check the Energy Impact on an iPhone or iPad as one can with Activity Monitor on a Mac?

Yeah, it keeps saying that it's indexing at the bottom of the screen. I can get some results for searches, so there's that. Like you, I'm wondering if that message at the bottom of the screen really means what it seems to mean. Is it continuing to index and is still going through older images? Is it doing multiple passes learning more and more and will continue to do this for a significant period of time? Is it an erroneous or misleading message?

 

[avmsam]

Is the language workaround for folks outside the USA still working ? If someone is now doing the beta today would they still be able to do it be changing the language settings ?

Got a friend saying they don't see option.

 

[d245770q]

We don't know, it's true, but iOS 18.1 will be released for all models, whether or not they have AI, on the same day. It's not a minor version, like a possible 18.0.x that could be released for specific models as has happened in the past. That's why it makes sense for the 18.1 betas to go hand in hand with the 18.0 betas, because Apple is also interested in 18.1 having the greatest possible stability in order to be able to test AI with the maximum guarantees.

Again… we know nothing. 2 weeks ago nobody was predicting/assumimg/guessing or speculating that we’d get 18.1 beta before 18.0 release. People just love to guess on this forum like it’s fact or they have knowledge!

 

[gwhizkids]

We don't know, it's true, but iOS 18.1 will be released for all models, whether or not they have AI, on the same day. It's not a minor version, like a possible 18.0.x that could be released for specific models as has happened in the past. That's why it makes sense for the 18.1 betas to go hand in hand with the 18.0 betas, because Apple is also interested in 18.1 having the greatest possible stability in order to be able to test AI with the maximum guarantees.

Again… we know nothing. 2 weeks ago nobody was predicting/assumimg/guessing or speculating that we’d get 18.1 beta before 18.0 release. People just love to guess on this forum like it’s fact or they have knowledge!

And all of this discussion belongs in the speculation thread not this one.

 

[TheBMacAttack]

The writing stuff is available anywhere there’s a text box. The Siri stuff (coming later) can be used by any app that elects to implement App Intents in their apps. From watching the WWDC videos, implementing the app intents is non-trivial. So I would expect slow uptake especially for smaller developers. Some, though, like Carrotweather and David Smith (Sleep++ and WidgetSmith) will likely embrace it enthusiastically.

Let’s hope the app developers (at least the bigger ones) aren’t too slow. The cool Siri is wear the AI magic is. The writing stuff can be useful in a business setting, but for me my daily routine won’t really be impacted. The Genmoji and image playground are party tricks, but they don’t make my life easier. Hoping app developers will be able to start working on the Siri stuff sooner rather than later.

 

[Jumpie]

I’m not sure of this is new or not since I only just tried it now but if you have an airline and flight number displayed and you highlight it, the contextual menu includes a Preview Flight button that opens Apple’s flight tracker. I think it’s pretty cool.

 

[dk001]

The writing stuff is available anywhere there’s a text box. The Siri stuff (coming later) can be used by any app that elects to implement App Intents in their apps. From watching the WWDC videos, implementing the app intents is non-trivial. So I would expect slow uptake especially for smaller developers. Some, though, like Carrotweather and David Smith (Sleep++ and WidgetSmith) will likely embrace it enthusiastically.

The writing stuff does not work for Outlook or Teams or Proton or Developer or Kodex or…. I have not been able to get it to work. Maybe that will be coming (crosses fingers).

 

[TheBMacAttack]

The writing stuff does not work for Outlook or Teams or Proton or Developer or Kodex or….
Maybe that will be coming (crosses fingers).

I was gonna asked about that. I have download 15.1 for my MacBook Pro, but without these working for Outlook, it’s really not useful for me.

 

[dk001]

I was gonna asked about that. I have download 15.1 for my MacBook Pro, but without these working for Outlook, it’s really not useful for me.

I’ve only been trying on my 15PM and iPad Pro. My MBP is not on the beta train.

 

[TheBMacAttack]

I’ve only been trying on my 15PM and iPad Pro. My MBP is not on the beta train.

Yeah, I would assume if outlook doesn’t work on iOS it won’t on macOS.

I am not real surprised though, it will take some time for the writing tools to go beyond stock apps. I just can’t use Apple mail app for work.

 

[gwhizkids]

The writing stuff does not work for Outlook or Teams or Proton or Developer or Kodex or…. I have not been able to get it to work. Maybe that will be coming (crosses fingers).

Works for me in both the Outlook app and the Teams app on iOS. Select typed text, select writing tools from context menu. So far I have not found any text entry field/area where it’s not available.

 

[dk001]

Works for me in both the Outlook app and the Teams app on iOS. Select typed text, select writing tools from context menu. So far I have not found any text entry field/area where it’s not available.

Odd. Won’t show up on either of mine. Sending email. Reading email. Doing Chat or other items in Teams.
All I see or get are the stock MS functions. Though CoPilot is greyed out.

Going to have to play around with it and see what I can find.

 

[Ansath]

Works for me in both the Outlook app and the Teams app on iOS. Select typed text, select writing tools from context menu. So far I have not found any text entry field/area where it’s not available.

I just checked and also there for me too.

 

[marey]

iPhone 15 Pro.The cellular network is reset every now and then, I have two penalties eSim and Sim. The memory is filled up by diagnostic data to almost 95 %. A message about the lack of memory pops up, the battery drops 2% per hour when the phone is not in use.

 

[gwhizkids]

iPhone 15 Pro.The cellular network is reset every now and then, I have two penalties eSim and Sim. The memory is filled up by diagnostic data to almost 95 %. A message about the lack of memory pops up, the battery drops 2% per hour when the phone is not in use.

Not entirely clear on what is happening to you but it sounds to me like it might be a good idea to reinstall iOS 18.1 on your device.