iOS 18.2 Lets You Create Emoji, Rolling Out in Beta Over 'Coming Weeks'

Apple on Friday announced it will be rolling out access to its new Genmoji, Image Playground, and Image Wand features to users who are on the iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 developer betas "over the coming weeks."

iOS 18 Genmoji WWDC
The full text of Apple's news article, shared on the Feedback Assistant website:

With the iOS & iPadOS 18.2 and macOS Sequoia 15.2 betas, you can join the waitlist for early access to Image Playground, Genmoji, and Image Wand in order to test and help improve these features.

You can request access within any one of these experiences:

- Image Playground app
- Image Playground integration in Messages or Freeform
- Genmoji integration in the emoji keyboard, or
- Image Wand within the Apple Pencil tool palette in Notes

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.

As mentioned by Apple, the features have a waitlist. Some users received access to the features within minutes of Apple releasing the betas, but others are still waiting, so Apple's announcement provides clarity to those who are still waiting.

Genmoji, Image Playground, and Image Wand are some of the new Apple Intelligence features introduced in the iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 developer betas, with others including ChatGPT integration for Siri, Visual Intelligence on all iPhone 16 models, and the ability to describe custom tones for text in Writing Tools.

Genmoji can generate custom emoji based on your description, Image Playground can generate cartoon-like images based on your description, and Image Wand can transform a rough sketch into a proper image in the Notes app.

The first Apple Intelligence features are launching to the public with iOS 18.1 next week, in U.S. English only. Those features include Writing Tools, notification summaries, suggested replies in the Messages and Mail apps, a "Clean Up" tool in the Photos app for quickly removing objects from the background of photos, and more. iOS 18.2 should be released to the public in December with Genmoji, Image Playground, and the additional features.

iOS 18.2 and the other betas also expand Apple Intelligence to localized English spoken in the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, with additional languages like German, Italian, and Korean to follow next year.

Apple Intelligence on iOS requires an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, or any iPhone 16 model.

Related Roundups: iOS 18, iPadOS 18
Related Forums: iOS 18, iPadOS 18

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Top Rated Comments

abatabia Avatar
9 months ago
If everyone in the beta can’t test the beta there shouldn’t be 18.2. Apple AI has been an absolute disaster of a rollout for subpar features I can already enjoy on my pixel.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kagharaht Avatar
9 months ago
I feel so old. I don't understand the amount of effort Apple puts into Emoji. It seems like every software engineer is tasked at the job and forgot about actually producing quality OS. LOL
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
coffeemilktea Avatar
9 months ago
I think the Internet will soon be flooded with artistically expressive sausage and eggplant emojis in the near future. ?
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
abatabia Avatar
9 months ago

Revolutionary feature…
Middle finger to Apple for restricting 18.2 to only 15pro and 16lineup
This. I’m supposed to “reward” apple by buying a new Mac this week built for an ai that won’t be fully realized until next year? I’ll hold off until it’s out and all the kinks are worked out.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
addamas Avatar
9 months ago
Revolutionary feature…
Middle finger to Apple for restricting 18.2 to only 15pro and 16lineup

Edit: to downvoting - there are 5 bugs still present there which I could not check for being fixed or not because of that. I don’t care about AI stuff at all. Just want to test as I did since iOS 18 B1… to make life better for others and myself.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
flybass Avatar
9 months ago
Gen Z features.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)