Apple Intelligence beta access will have a waitlist; use outside US may be slow

We already knew it was going to be a wait for Apple Intelligence beta access, with the company warning that the new features won’t be available until later in the year, but code found in iOS 18 indicates that there will be a waitlist for access.

Apple has also indicated that, while Apple Intelligence will be available to those outside the US, we may have to put up with delayed responses …

MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris spotted the code.

In ‌iOS 18‌, Apple Intelligence is codenamed Graymatter. There are references to a waitlist, with specific strings that say “Join the Graymatter Waiting List” and “Joined Waitlist.” There is also wording that refers to it as a “limited preview.”

“While Graymatter is in limited preview, you may experience unusually slow responses when not in a supported region.”

The timings are unclear, thanks to the fact that Apple will label the new AI features as ‘beta’ even after the official launch of iOS 18. That makes the company’s reference to beta access somewhat ambiguous.

Apple Intelligence is free for users, and will be available in beta as part of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia this fall in U.S. English.

No Apple Intelligence features are present in developer beta 1, but we can expect them to start rolling out in future betas, perhaps gradually.

I outlined earlier the AI features I most want to try, as well as my first impressions of the iOS 18 developer beta 1.

Photo by stefan moertl on Unsplash