Apple Intelligence to Evolve in Two Ways Across iOS 18.6 and iOS 19

While the more personalized version of Siri is infamously delayed, Apple Intelligence will continue to evolve in other ways in the meantime.

In a later-than-usual Monday edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman outlined two additional Apple Intelligence enhancements that are likely planned for the upcoming iOS 18.6 and iOS 19 software updates.

First, he expects iOS 18.6 to enable Apple Intelligence in China, with Alibaba and Baidu set to power some of the features in that country.

Second, he said that iOS 19 will include new Apple Intelligence capabilities, although he did not provide any specific details. In court, Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently suggested that iOS 19 may include Google Gemini integration.

iPhone models with Apple Intelligence have already offered ChatGPT integration since iOS 18.2. With user permission, Siri can show ChatGPT answers directly in response to questions and other prompts. ChatGPT is also an option for Apple's system-wide Writing Tools feature, allowing users to generate text and images. Google Gemini would likely have similar integration across Siri and Writing Tools, becoming a second option alongside ChatGPT.

Google Gemini is already available as an iPhone app.

Apple Intelligence is available on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and all iPhone 16 models, plus select iPads and Macs.

iOS 18.6 beta testing should begin later this month. After that, Apple is expected to announce iOS 19 during its annual developers conference WWDC, which kicks off Monday, June 9. The first iOS 19 beta should be seeded to developers shortly after the keynote, and the software update should be released to the general public in September.