Apple Intelligence offers many features to users who are willing and able to download the betas of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, or macOS Sequoia 15.1 now. But one of the most universal features is Writing Tools, a selection of options for revising or summarizing your text.
The writing tools work best when you’re editing a lot of text, but you can also use them to check spelling or adjust the tone of short messages. For longer passages of text, you can create a summary or list of key points, or reformat it into a list or table to convey the information more clearly. And they’re available anywhere you can select text, so you can summarize articles you find online as well as anything you write yourself.
Below we’ll show you how to access and then use all of the Apple Intelligence Writing tools available in iOS 18.1. You can check out our guide on how to download the iOS 18 beta if you need to install it, but keep in mind that this will only work if you own an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max.
1. Select text and then select writing tools
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Double-tap text to highlight it, then use the handles to select the passage you want. Then, in the bubble that appears, choose Writing Tools. If you don’t see this option, tap the right arrow on the side of the bubble to scroll through more options.
If you select a long enough section of text, you may get a shortcut to the main writing tools menu as well as recommended tools in the autocomplete bar. Use one of these tools, or as before, the speech bubble menu, to get where you want to go.
2. Clean up your text with Proofread
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We’ll now look at the first set of tools with this quick message to my colleague Josh asking about an upcoming story.
If you have any typos or other errors, Proofread will find and fix them for you. You can skip the errors found and undo the changes if you prefer before accepting the text.
3. Use rewrite to phrase things differently
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Use this tool to customize your text if you want to see the same message expressed differently, but don’t expect many changes if you’re only using it for short messages like this one.
4. Be mindful of your tone with Friendly, Professional and Concise modes
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Sometimes you need to adjust your text to make it friendlier, more formal, or more concise. And Writing Tools can try to do that for you.
Using the phrase “Friendly” makes your text a little more relaxed, which is a good idea if you don’t want to intimidate your colleague too much.
If you prefer to rely on your authority, you can use Pro Mode to make even eight-word sentences drip with formality.
Concise mode didn’t work for this example because it’s too short. Writing Tools warns you about this from the start, so if you’re just sending a short message, it’s probably best if you handle it yourself.
5. Be brief with summary and key points
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Now let’s move on to a longer piece of text – our Made by Google rumor hub – to try out the text concentration features. The summary is the simplest, as it summarizes the section of text into a single paragraph. After Writing Tools creates the summary, you can choose to copy it while leaving the original text unchanged, replace the text with the summary, or send it via the share sheet.
Key Points gives you a bulleted list that is, at least in this example, a little longer than Summary. However, it is another good way to get to the point of the passage you are reading.
6. Reformat things with list or table
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Lists differ from key points in that they do not attempt to reduce the length of the text, but simply summarize things in bullet points.
The table is a strange example. It only seems to register certain pieces of text to be inserted into the table, like the Google startup data in this case. Not good for replacing the entire article, but good if you want to copy and paste the table.
Now that you’ve mastered tool-assisted writing in iOS 18, we want to show you some other cool things you can try with the latest iPhone software update. If you need a break from your fitness goals, we’ll show you how to pause your Move ring in iOS 18’s Fitness app. Maybe during your break, you can check out how to record video with background music in iOS 18 and capture a memory of your experience with a soundtrack.
If you want to be productive instead, check out how to create reminders in iOS 18’s Calendar app to make it easier to remember your tasks and get them done on time. We also have a guide on how to create an audio recording in iOS 18’s Notes app in case you want to use both written and recorded notes at your next meeting or lecture.
