Apple Watch: Yes Apple intelligence – but only through the backdoor

One disappointment with Apple’s new AI system is that it only runs on select devices from the manufacturer. By default, Apple Intelligence is only released for the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, all Macs with M-SoC, and all iPads with M-SoC. Neither older iPhones nor HomePods or Apple Watch officially receive this technology. But at least the Apple Watch will be able to use the new AI functions to a limited extent. The reason is simple: it is still closely linked to the iPhone.

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Read less thanks to the summary

This means: If the customer also has an Apple smartphone of the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max series in addition to the Apple Watch, at least the so-called Notification Summary can be used on a device that is not actually supported by Apple Intelligence. That is 9to5Mac spotted. The idea behind Notification Summary is to summarize messages from the Mail and Messages apps into a single sentence so you can process them more quickly. To do this, Apple uses its own language model, which runs both directly on the iPhone and on Apple’s servers via Private Cloud Compute (PCC).

Some functions – for example in Apple Mail – have already been released in the current developer betas of iOS 18.1 and iPadOS 18.1. Testers report that the summary is usually quite accurate. However, like the entire Apple Intelligence offering, it is only available in US English; German and other regional versions are unlikely to arrive before 2025. Also, Apple is working on a new type of Focus mode that will intelligently let information through that are important to the user. Finally, Apple Intelligence should also be able to automatically prioritize notifications.

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More iPhones with Apple Intelligence

Since the Apple Watch is now directly connected to the iPhone and can display notifications that appear there, summarized and/or prioritized notifications will also arrive there in the future. As mentioned, the prerequisite is an Apple smartphone that supports Apple Intelligence.

In addition to the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max models, it should also be the entire 16 series, which will be released in September. The iPhone SE 4, which is usually expected to arrive in spring 2025, is also said to be ready for Apple’s new AI system thanks to the new SoC and more RAM. It remains to be seen whether the Apple Watch will one day be able to run Apple intelligence – even this year, the SiP (system-in-a-package) built into the expected new models will probably not have enough power and RAM.

(B.Sc.)