Apple’s Next Software Updates Will Enable Apple Intelligence Automatically macrumors.com

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

When installing macOS Sequoia 15.3, iOS 18.3, or iPadOS 18.3, Apple Intelligence will be turned on automatically on compatible devices, Apple says in the developer release notes for the updates.

Eric Schwarz:

The documentation is for 15.3, so I suspect the version number is a typo. iOS 18.3 will also receive this “feature” — while there is a toggle to turn it back off, just having Apple Intelligence installed uses a lot of space. […]

This is a good point. According to my Mac, Apple Intelligence is consuming 5.75 GB of disk space. MacOS, as a whole and including Apple Intelligence, consumes 22 GB. The exact amount probably varies from device to device but, still, that is a considerable amount of new space required — a thirty-odd percent growth in operating system size in a nominally minor version update.

Apple still insists this is a beta, but it no longer has the excuse that users are opting in knowing the risks and flaws. These are just unfinished new features. It turns out problems and a lack of quality control magically become excusable if you just slap a beta badge on it. This is a trick Google has known about for decades.