Apple’s iOS 18 update includes the most impactful changes to Apple Mail since their 2021 rollout of Mail Privacy Protection. However, the adoption of these features are on two very distinct and separate timelines. The timeline for Apple Mail app changes will be fairly quick, while the timeline for Apple Intelligence and its impact on the Apple Mail experience will be quite slow.

Let’s look at both of those timelines and the specific features involved.

Apple Mail App Changes

Starting with iOS 18.2, Apple Mail has seen updates that have significantly impacted the user experience and marketers. All existing iPhones are compatible with iOS 18.2 and therefore are eligible for the following new Apple Mail app features.

1. Branded Mail. Apple has formally supported Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) for years now, but only as a mailbox provider. Their new Branded Mail in Apple Business Connect feature allows them to support it as an inbox provider, too. With this addition, it’s now possible for brands on average to have BIMI-powered logos appear next to their sender name with more than 90% of their emails.

Related post: BIMI Email Standard Gets Big Boost by Becoming Less of a Standard

2. Tabs. More than 10 years after Gmail pioneered tabs, and several years after Yahoo Mail and Outlook added tabs, Apple Mail has now done so, too. Their implementation (which they call categories) features four tabs: Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions. While there are similarities, every major US inbox provider has tab groupings that are unique.

A unique feature of Apple Mail tabs is Intelligent Re-Categorization, which mirrors important Updates and Transactions in the Primary Tab, increasing the chances that these messages will be seen. Messages deemed “time-sensitive” include password reset emails and two-factor authentication code emails.

Related post: Inbox Tabs Become Standard: What Marketers Need to Know

3. Brand Message Grouping. A second way that Apple Mail now helps users navigate all the emails they receive is by grouping older emails by brand. Unfortunately, the user experience isn’t great, mostly because when you click on an older email from a brand, it brings up a brand message grouping screen that lists emails in order since the last time you engaged with the brand.

So, if the last time you opened or clicked an email from a brand was 3 months ago, then you’re going to see the next email they sent you after that one. Depending on how often that brand sends emails, you might have to scroll through many, many screens before getting to the most recent email, which is probably what you’re most interested in. 

We think this experience is so counterintuitive that Apple will eventually reorder brand message grouping from newest to oldest, just as they do with the emails elsewhere in the inbox. It can’t happen soon enough.

Related post: Apple iOS 18: The Most Important Changes for Marketers

Apple Intelligence’s Impact on Apple Mail

Launched with iOS 18.1, Apple’s new AI features are on a completely different adoption schedule than the Apple Mail app changes. That’s because Apple Intelligence requires processing power and RAM storage that’s currently only available on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and new iPhone 16 lineup. With smartphone replacement cycles being around 3 years, the following two Apple Intelligence features won’t impact the majority of your mobile email subscribers until sometime in 2026.

Pre-Open AI Summaries. On by default, pre-open AI Summaries replace your emails’ preview text with a two-line generative AI-powered summary based on the HTML text in your message. Summary accuracy and quality is mixed, especially for emails that are mostly images. 

Post-Open AI Summaries. Apple Mail users with Apple Intelligence can also get a longer summary of an email by clicking a “Summarize” button after they open an email. The accuracy and quality of these summaries are slightly better than the pre-open ones. Even so, because they’re not on by default, we don’t expect them to have a major impact on marketers.

Related post: AI Summaries for Email: Design Impacts on Marketers

How Marketers Can Adapt

For a full discussion of how marketers should adjust their programs in light of these changes, watch this 46-minute on-demand webinar below. It covers both short-term and long-term impacts, and provides more details about each of the new features.

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