iPadOS 18.2 is now generally available for all supported iPads! If you have an M-Series iPad or iPad Mini with A17 Pro, there’s also another quarterly release of Apple Intelligence features, this time centered around Image Generation and ChatGPT.

Non-Apple Intelligence Features

Photos App Improvements

Apple continues to refine the Photos app experience after a pretty drastic redesign in iPadOS 18. Improvements this go around are:

• The Favorites collection now shows up in both the Pinned Collections and Utilities section of the app’s sidebar, making it a tiny bit easier to get to your favorite photos.
• The video scrubbing control now affords you the ability to scrub frame by frame. This is surfaced by the addition of milliseconds to the timestamp as you’re scrubbing.
• The Recently Added and Recently Shared album histories can now be cleared. You have the option to remove items one by one, or tap the ellipsis in the upper right corner of the app to remove all photos from those collections.
  

Safari

• If you customize Safari’s Start page, there are a few additional pre-loaded images you can use. You can, of course, still use one of your own pictures if you don’t like any of Apple’s provided options.
• There’s now a Live Activity that shows the download progress of files you download in Safari. Since we don’t have a dynamic island on iPadOS, you can view the Live Activity from the Lock Screen.
• There’s now an ability to export or import browser data. This should make it much easier to switch between different browsers on iPadOS. I imagine we have the European Union to thank for that. You’ll need to jump into Settings to find this (Settings -> Apps -> Safari). The data in question here includes:
  • Bookmark data
  • Browser History
  • Extension Data
  • Saved Credit Card Data
  • Saved Passwords
• Back in the day there used to be this extension called HTTPS everywhere that would essentially force the browser to use https as a default over the more insecure HTTP protocol. Based on what’s in the 18.2 release notes, it sounds like Safari now implements this behavior. And while most sites have switched over to using HTTPS long ago, this is still great to see.

Customizable Sidebar In TV App

The new customizable sidebar was a notable UI enhancement that was added to iPadOS 18. It has the benefit of giving users more customization while also providing a better sidebar experience in portrait. With iPadOS 18.2, the TV app now gets updated with this UI control. The first four options cannot be changed, but the user is free to customize the sidebar after that point.

Find My

The Find My App gives you the ability to securely share the location of an AirTag or other Find My accessory you’re tracking with others. The example I’ve read that makes the most sense is being able to share the location of your lost luggage that has an AirTag in it, with your airline.

If you select the item in Find My, scroll down and you’ll find a new Share Location option. Following the prompts will generate a shareable link that will open either in the Find My app or the web on a non-Apple device. You can share the link right from the share sheet.

By default, the link is active for 7 days, and you can go back into Find My and disable sharing if you find the item before that.

Settings

Icon Styling Persists In Settings

The styling you have applied to your app icons is now reflected in the little icon previews you see in the Settings app. So, for example, if you’re one of these people that does dark mode all the time, then the icons in Settings will similarly be the dark mode variants. This even extends to tinted icons.

Default Apps Section

There’s a new panel that consolidates your default app settings. Previously, you’d have to go into the individual app’s settings to change your default browser or default mail client. Options in this section will vary between regions. You’ll find this section in Settings -> Apps.

Volume Limit

There’s a new setting in your iPad that allows you to control the volume of the external speakers. This feature can be particularly useful if you want to prevent your child from playing excessively loud games or songs that you’ve heard repeatedly and find irritating. To access this option, navigate to Accessibility -> Audio & Visual -> Always Show Volume Control.

Always Show Volume Control On Lock Screen

At some point, the default behavior of the lock screen music widget changed to remove the volume slider. In iPadOS 18.2, there’s now an option to restore that behavior (Accessibility -> Audio & Visual -> Always Show Volume Control).

Type To Siri Widget

iPadOS 18.2 introduces a new Control Center toggle for Type To Siri, offering a convenient way to access this functionality without the need to double-tap the home bar (which I often do accidentally).

Apple Intelligence Features

Image Playground

Image Playground, a new app powered by Apple’s generative AI models, allows users to generate custom images based on photos or prompts. There are several ways to generate images using the app. It offers a variety of starting points, including personalized images of yourself or others from your Apple Photos library, a custom prompt of your own, or one of the provided prompts.

One unique feature is the ability to add additional parameters to customize your prompt. For instance, you could input the phrase “a knight holding a sword” and then provide a picture of yourself. Then, you will get rendered as the knight with a sword.

Apple has intentionally designed the styles to be cartoony to prevent the creation of realistic and misleading images. The app provides two style options: Animation and Illustration.

Image Playground is integrated into Messages as an iMessage app, making it convenient to quickly create and send generated images. You can also access Image Playground in both Freeform and Keynote (though I don’t see the Keynote integration yet, at the time of this writing).

Image Wand

Image Wand, an AI tool in the Notes app, transforms rough sketches into fully realized images. This works great with the Apple Pencil, but also works with just your finger.

There are two ways to use this feature:

1. Create an image using the content of a note as its content. For instance, if you have a note describing your ideal house, you can invoke Image Wand by making a circle in an empty space. Apple Intelligence will then create a representative image based on what you wrote in your note. If it’s not confident that it has enough information, it’ll prompt you for additional detail.
2. Use Image Wand to circle a sketch in your note. You’ll be prompted to add additional context that the AI will use to generate a more realized image.
   

Genmoji

Genmoji, as its name suggests, employs Generative AI to generate custom emojis. This functionality is accessed by searching in the emoji keyboard. If you describe an emoji that doesn’t exist, you’ll now have a button to “Create New Emoji.” Apple Intelligence may request additional context if it can’t understand your initial description. Once you’ve created an emoji, you can save it and reuse it in the future.

Writing Tools Improvements

Writing Tools, introduced in iPadOS 18.1, now have a UI for requesting changes beyond the predefined options. For example, you could ask writing tools to re-write some content in Ye Olde English, or to make you sound like a pirate.

ChatGPT Siri Integration

Siri can now communicate directly with ChatGPT. This is entirely optional integration and not enabled by default for privacy concerns. ChatGPT is the market leader in AI chatbots, capable of answering more questions and performing more tasks than Siri can currently do.

In the Apple Intelligence settings, there’s a new setting that lets you configure ChatGPT. You can optionally sign into your ChatGPT account, which may provide additional personal context and access to newer models if you’re a paying customer. You do not need to sign in to use the ChatGPT integration.

Before Siri fields a request to ChatGPT, you’re prompted to confirm this is what you want to happen. There’s a toggle to turn off this behavior in Settings if you don’t want to confirm every time. File uploads will still require your confirmation, regardless of the setting.

If you choose to sign up for ChatGPT Plus, you can do so directly from the Settings app. You’ll need to create an account, and your data will be subject to OpenAI’s privacy policy.