Apple Intelligence UK Guide: What British Users Need to Know

Apple Intelligence is now available with iOS 18.1, exclusively in U.S. English – so what do users in the UK need to know?

Apple Intelligence General Feature 2
‌Apple Intelligence‌ is Apple's upcoming artificial intelligence system that offers personalized, context-aware features, such as notification summaries, writing tools, image and emoji generation, Visual Lookup, and a revamped version of Siri that integrates ChatGPT and on-screen awareness and the ability to take action. With an in-depth understanding of your personal context, ‌Apple Intelligence‌ should significantly improve user experience and expand the capabilities of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

See our other guide to learn more about all of the ‌Apple Intelligence‌ tools currently available in iOS 18.1. Some ‌Apple Intelligence‌ features won't be coming until later, with the rollout continuing into next year.

How to Enable Apple Intelligence in the UK Now

‌Apple Intelligence‌ is officially only currently available in beta to developers in the U.S., but it can be enabled on iPhones and iPads in the UK and most other countries, with the exception of the European Union and China.

The main reason Apple has limited access to ‌Apple Intelligence‌ is that it only supports U.S. English at this time, but if you can tolerate that, are not willing to wait until it is localized, and have a compatible device, then there is no technical reason why you can't start exploring the new AI features right away. You need to be running iOS 18.1 to activate ‌Apple Intelligence‌.

Only Apple iPhones, iPads, and silicon Macs powered by the A17 Pro or M1 chip or later support ‌Apple Intelligence‌. On the ‌iPhone‌ or ‌iPad‌, follow these steps:

  1. Open Settings, then tap through to General ➝ Language & Region.
  2. Tap Add Language... and choose English (US).

  3. Return to the main Settings menu and tap Apple Intelligence & Siri.
  4. Tap Language and choose English (United States).
  5. You will now be able to join the ‌Apple Intelligence‌ waitlist, which in most cases gets accepted in just a few minutes. Under the ‌Apple Intelligence‌ header text, tap Join Waitlist.

  6. After what should be a short wait, the message will change to Turn On Apple Intelligence. Tap it, and a welcome message should appear, indicating you have successfully enabled ‌Apple Intelligence‌ on your device.

When Will Apple Intelligence Be Localized for the UK?

If you choose to enable ‌Apple Intelligence‌ in the UK at the current time, your device will be limited to U.S. English, which means autocorrect and other features will begin to spell words differently and use non-native phrases.

Apple has now announced that support for versions of English spoken in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK will be added in December 2024, and that support for Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish will be added next year. When this happens, you will be able to switch your device back to UK English. Alternatively, if you dislike the idea of setting your device to U.S. English to get access to ‌Apple Intelligence‌ sooner, you only need to wait until December to enable it natively.

Popular Stories

Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
2024 App Store Awards

Apple Explains Why It Removed TikTok From the App Store in the U.S.

Sunday January 19, 2025 6:58 am PST by
Apple on late Saturday removed TikTok from the App Store in the U.S., and it has now explained why it was required to take this action. Last year, the U.S. passed a law that required Chinese company ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok due to potential national security risks, or else the platform would be banned. That law went into effect today, and companies like Apple and Google...
iPhone 17 Air Size Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With Rear Camera Bar Allegedly Shown in Leaked Photo

Tuesday January 21, 2025 12:46 pm PST by
A leaker known as "Majin Bu" today shared an alleged image of a component for the rumored, ultra-thin "iPhone 17 Air" model. The blurry, pixelated image shows a pair of rear iPhone shells with a pill-shaped, raised camera bar along the top. On the left side of the bar, there is a circular cutout that appears to be for a single rear camera. On the right side of the bar, there appears to be an ...
iPhone SE Dynamic Island Majin Bu

iPhone SE 4 Leak Shows Dynamic Island, Casts Doubt on Rumored 'iPhone 16E' Name

Monday January 20, 2025 9:01 am PST by
A new iPhone SE is widely rumored to launch this year, and the device has potentially been confirmed today by known leaker Evan Blass. In a private social media post, Blass shared an image of what appears to be source code mentioning an iPhone SE (4th Gen), which casts doubt on the alternative "iPhone 16E" name rumored for the device. However, the name in the source code could be a...
airtag 4 pack blue

AirTag 2 Launching This Year With These 3 New Features

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:11 am PST by
After a four-year wait, a new AirTag is finally expected to launch in 2025. Below, we recap rumored upgrades for the accessory. A few months ago, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple was aiming to release the AirTag 2 around the middle of 2025. While he did not offer a more specific timeframe, that means the AirTag 2 could be announced by the end of June. The original AirTag was announced...
iOS 19 Roundup Feature

iOS 19 Rumored to Be Compatible With These iPhones

Saturday January 18, 2025 10:28 am PST by
iOS 19 will not drop support for any iPhone models, according to French website iPhoneSoft.fr. The report cited a source who said iOS 19 will be compatible with any iPhone that can run iOS 18, which would mean the following models: iPhone 16 iPhone 16 Plus iPhone 16 Pro iPhone 16 Pro Max iPhone 15 iPhone 15 Plus iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 15 Pro Max iPhone 14 iPhon...
apple power beats pro 2

Powerbeats Pro 2 Coming Soon: Apple to Announce Them 'Imminently'

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:25 am PST by
In September, Apple said that it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and it appears the wireless earbuds are coming very soon. Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the Powerbeats Pro 2 in regulatory databases last month, Gurman said Apple is...
Generic iOS 18

Everything New in iOS 18.3 Beta 3

Thursday January 16, 2025 12:39 pm PST by
Apple provided the third beta of iOS 18.3 to developers today, and while the betas have so far been light on new features, the third beta makes some major changes to Notification Summaries and also tweaks a few other features. Notification Summary Changes Apple made multiple changes to Notification Summaries in response to complaints about inaccurate summaries of news headlines. For...