Earlier this week, Apple released the second developer beta for iOS 18.2. While the first beta was strictly for developers and limited to devices supporting Apple Intelligence, the second beta was available for the rest of the iPhone lineup, so a public beta was likely just around the corner. Today, it arrives for all iPhone models supporting iOS 18.
Specifically, that's the 2018 iPhone XS/XR and newer models. However, the most significant new features in iOS 18.2 are the next wave of Apple Intelligence: image creation features and ChatGPT integration. As with the rest of Apple's suite of AI tools, these require an iPhone 15 Pro or newer.
If you have one of these recent iPhone models, you're probably eager to try out the latest Apple Intelligence features, such as Image Playground and Genmoji. They're fun and work well, but you may also want to temper your expectations as Apple isn't rolling them out immediately.
Put simply, you'll have to do more than install the iOS 18.2 public beta to get access to Apple's latest image creation tools. Image Playground, Genmoji, and Image Wand all have a waitlist -- and it's not automatic.
To join the waitlist, you'll need to open the new Image Playground app after installing iOS 18.2 and follow the instructions to sign up. The good news is that it only takes a couple of taps; the bad news is that you could be waiting a while.
Apple hasn't explicitly shared why it's making folks wait, but there are likely several reasons behind the decision.
The waitlist was there from the very first developer beta two weeks ago. Eager beavers who installed the beta minutes after its release got in reasonably quickly, while others found themselves waiting days with no results and becoming impatient. Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi eventually responded to one developer, emphasizing that this is a wait list and that access would be rolled out "over the coming weeks."
Apple later posted a note to developers in the news section of the Feedback app:
We will roll out access to Image Playground, Genmoji, and Image Wand over the coming weeks. When the features are ready for you to test, you will be notified. After you receive access, you can tap the thumbs up or thumbs down that appear with each result in Image Playground, Genmoji, and Image Wand in order to provide feedback.
None of this explains why the waitlist exists, but the reasons aren't too difficult to guess.
Firstly, Apple is likely still scaling up its Private Cloud Compute servers. While Apple Intelligence uses on-device processing as much as possible, and these features work surprisingly well even when you're in Airplane Mode, it still has cloud servers in place to handle the heavier lifting for tasks that exceed the capabilities of its devices. It's likely still building and scaling those servers, so they'll be ready for the public release in December. Beta testing is more than just finding bugs -- it also helps Apple gauge how much load AI requests will place on its infrastructure.
Apple is likely letting people in as it builds out more capacity. Since the waitlist applies to your Apple ID and not your device -- once you're in, you'll be able to use Image Playground and Genmoji on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac -- it also has to factor in the possibility that what an A18 Pro-powered iPhone 16 Pro Max can do entirely on-device may require Private Cloud Compute when tried on a 2020-era M1 MacBook Air.
The other possible aspect of the waitlist is Apple building these tools responsibly. It's collecting feedback and looking at what people share with Image Playground from the new betas. While these tools already have some solid guardrails -- you can only turn people in cartoonish headshots -- it likely wants to be able to adjust things slowly and hear from developers and beta testers before opening the floodgates to all.
However, not all the new Apple Intelligence features in the iOS 18.2 beta are locked behind a velvet rope. ChatGPT integration should be available out of the gate. It's part of the same overall Apple Intelligence waitlist from iOS 18.1, but that one has proven to move much faster -- it seems more about downloading the necessary data for large language models (LLMs) -- and you won't have to go through it again if you've already installed iOS 18.1 and have Apple Intelligence activated.
iOS 18.2 also brings Apple Intelligence to more English languages, so folks in Canada, the UK, and other English-speaking countries won't have to remain stuck on US English just to use the new features.