Apple unveiled a major update to its Mail app in June, including a new design, enhanced Apple Intelligence, and a number of improvements to the user experience. Although most of the non-AI features have not yet appeared in the beta version, Apple now says we can expect to see all of these features go live “later this year.”
Classification function
The Mail app in iOS 18 will sort your emails into different categories through local processing on the device. Personal conversations and time-sensitive emails will be grouped into the “Primary” category, and there will also be “Transactional”, “Updates” and “Promotions” categories.
Summary View
In iOS 18, the Mail app will display emails grouped by sender. For example, after clicking on an email from United Airlines, you will be able to see all emails from the company, making it easy to find key information from the past without tedious searching. But this feature seems to only work in the mail category, and if you filter in “All Mail”, you can’t enjoy this convenience. However, if a sender is misclassified, you can easily move it to the correct category.
Highlight unread emails
In the new Mail app, you’ll be able to easily distinguish between new and old messages in each category. Newer, unread messages will appear at the top, while read messages will be at the bottom.
Smart Reply
Apple Intelligence adds a “Smart Reply” feature to the Mail app. When you reply to a new email and use the Apple Intelligence prompt above the keyboard, it will generate a reply based on the important content in the email and request your input when necessary so that Apple Intelligence can appropriately respond to everything in the initial email. Unlike the above features, the Smart Reply feature is already available in the iOS 18.1 beta.
Writing Tools
While Writing Tools is a system-wide feature and not limited to the Mail app, Apple specifically calls out its use in the Mail app. With Writing Tools, you can ask Apple Intelligence to help you make your emails more friendly, professional, or concise.
Email Summary
In iOS 18.1, with Apple Intelligence, the Mail app is able to instantly provide a quick summary of each email from the list view, saving time and avoiding opening every unnecessary email.
Priority Mail
The new Mail app also brings all priority emails to the top, a feature available starting with iOS 18.1. If an email is time-sensitive, such as an event invitation, flight check-in, or meeting cancellation, it is considered priority email.
Although Apple Intelligence features such as priority mail and writing tools can be experienced in the beta version, it seems that it will take some time for other features to be fully launched. Hopefully, these features will be available in iOS 18.2 before the end of the year, unless Apple delays the release.
