The latest version of Apple's mobile operating system was released on December 11th and now I am able to experience the updated features of Apple Mail first-hand. Here's what I'm observing so far, after having used it for a couple of days:
Apple Intelligence-driven previews have replaced preheaders But only on new-ish Macs (M1 chip or better) and new-ish iPhones (iPhone 15 or newer). Any iPhone older than the iPhone 15 will not show the AI-driven preview. Darn it, says this iPhone 14 Plus user! But it is interesting to see them on my modern MacBook Pro. And it reminds me that preheaders are dying. Though it is a bit of a long goodbye, as not every current iPhone user has an iPhone 15 or 16.
Categories do show up for me, though. Apparently you don't need an iPhone 15 or newer for those to work in Apple Mail on iOS. Are they accurate? Will they always be accurate? It is perhaps too soon to tell. One piece of anecdata: I do see a notification of a meeting recording in the "promotions" category. But this kind of mild miscategorization occurs to some degree in Gmail, too, and one assumes that Apple's category engine will learn from our feedback over time.
Apple Business Connect (ABC) logos are here. Apple still has support for BIMI, but the only way you're going to see a sender logo, if you're a Gmail user utilizing Apple Mail as your mail client, is if the sender has implemented Apple Business Connect. Meaning ABC does apparently show logos for senders who have them, even if the email account configured in Apple Mail is not iCloud. Is this intentional and/or broadly implemented? I assume so, but don't know for sure. I see what appear to be ABC logos for the USPS and eBay, but not really for anyone else (Yet?). I see various placeholder category images: an airplane for an airline, a knife-and-fork icon for a restaurant, a star for Linkedin, and what must be a little storefront (a small building with an awning) for Google.
BIMI. As hinted at above, Apple Mail only supports BIMI logo display in Apple Mail for iCloud email accounts. If the recipient is at an Apple iCloud domain (mac.com, me.com, icloud.com) and the sender has implemented BIMI (with VMC), and there's no ABC logo to display, a BIMI logo should show as the sender logo.
After I first opened the latest version of Apple Mail on my iPhone, I clicked through the four categories, then clicked on "About Categories" and this is what it shared with me:
Of interest is that it's possible to recategorize a message. I did it to move my recording notification out of Promotions and into Updates. To recategorize a message, swipe left on the message (while in the category view), select "More…" and scroll down the list of options to select "Categorize Sender."
As you see in the screenshot above, you can also reset prior manual recategorizations.
And finally, I note that while A.I.-driven summaries have appeared on MacOS, the rest of the Apple Mail updates (sender logos and categories) are not available anywhere except Apple Mail on iOS just yet.
Did I miss anything? Drop me a line, or leave me a comment, if your first experiences with Apple Mail in iOS 18.2 have been different than mine.
The latest version of Apple's mobile operating system was released on December 11th and now I am able to experience the updated features of Apple Mail first-hand. Here's what I'm observing so far, after having used it for a couple of days:
- Apple Intelligence-driven previews have replaced preheaders But only on new-ish Macs (M1 chip or better) and new-ish iPhones (iPhone 15 or newer). Any iPhone older than the iPhone 15 will not show the AI-driven preview. Darn it, says this iPhone 14 Plus user! But it is interesting to see them on my modern MacBook Pro. And it reminds me that preheaders are dying. Though it is a bit of a long goodbye, as not every current iPhone user has an iPhone 15 or 16.
- Categories do show up for me, though. Apparently you don't need an iPhone 15 or newer for those to work in Apple Mail on iOS. Are they accurate? Will they always be accurate? It is perhaps too soon to tell. One piece of anecdata: I do see a notification of a meeting recording in the "promotions" category. But this kind of mild miscategorization occurs to some degree in Gmail, too, and one assumes that Apple's category engine will learn from our feedback over time.
- Apple Business Connect (ABC) logos are here. Apple still has support for BIMI, but the only way you're going to see a sender logo, if you're a Gmail user utilizing Apple Mail as your mail client, is if the sender has implemented Apple Business Connect. Meaning ABC does apparently show logos for senders who have them, even if the email account configured in Apple Mail is not iCloud. Is this intentional and/or broadly implemented? I assume so, but don't know for sure. I see what appear to be ABC logos for the USPS and eBay, but not really for anyone else (Yet?). I see various placeholder category images: an airplane for an airline, a knife-and-fork icon for a restaurant, a star for Linkedin, and what must be a little storefront (a small building with an awning) for Google.
- BIMI. As hinted at above, Apple Mail only supports BIMI logo display in Apple Mail for iCloud email accounts. If the recipient is at an Apple iCloud domain (mac.com, me.com, icloud.com) and the sender has implemented BIMI (with VMC), and there's no ABC logo to display, a BIMI logo should show as the sender logo.
After I first opened the latest version of Apple Mail on my iPhone, I clicked through the four categories, then clicked on "About Categories" and this is what it shared with me:As you see in the screenshot above, you can also reset prior manual recategorizations.
Did I miss anything? Drop me a line, or leave me a comment, if your first experiences with Apple Mail in iOS 18.2 have been different than mine.
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