Writing Tools
The writing tools are one of the most frequently mentioned aspects of Apple Intelligence. Available on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac (noticeably absent on the Vision Pro), these tools use generative AI to refine your text. You simply highlight your written content and select a tool to adjust the tone—whether you need it to be friendlier, more professional, or more concise.
Typically, these tools trim text by about 40%. Although the tools generate results in just 3-4 seconds entirely on-device, which means they work offline, the user interface feels somewhat repetitive. The proofreading function catches issues like improper capitalization and errors with proper nouns.
However, its summarization and table-creation features struggle with longer documents. Even as a professional writer, I haven’t found extensive practical use for these tools yet.
Notification Summaries
This feature is designed to condense multiple notifications from various apps into a single summary, giving you the gist of lengthy message threads at a glance. In practice, however, the feature often fails to capture the nuances of individual notifications. While some users might find it helpful—or even amusing, as countless online memes attest—I have found it largely unhelpful and eventually turned it off.
Gen Emoji
Gen Emoji allows you to generate custom emojis using AI. If you need an emoji that doesn’t exist, you describe it, hit “Create a new emoji,” and within about three seconds, the tool generates an image for you. Although it’s a fun and unique feature, its practical use is limited.
The tool may refuse to produce overly graphic or controversial images, but it has no trouble creating quirky ones, such as a “potato with a gun.”
Image Playground
Image Playground is a standalone app that lets you create cartoon-style images from text prompts. Before typing, you can choose from various inspiration buttons—often featuring faces recognized from your Photos app—to serve as the base for your image.
The result is always a cartoon, never photorealistic. While this tool is similar to offerings from Google and others, its practical utility is debatable. It remains a beta feature and can produce unexpected results, making it more of a novelty than an essential tool.
Priority Notifications
Designed to manage the overwhelming flow of notifications, this feature prioritizes important messages—especially in the Mail app—by using AI to identify high-priority emails and reducing less important alerts. For users who rely on Apple Mail, this can be beneficial. However, its overall effectiveness is mixed, and it may not be as useful for those using third-party email services.
Photos App AI
Despite widespread integration of AI in photo apps by many companies, Apple has added just one major AI feature to the Photos app: background object removal. This tool works similarly to Google’s Magic Eraser by automatically detecting unwanted objects and using generative fill to remove them. In my experience, the background remover works impressively well—often outperforming Google’s version, especially on patterned or repetitive backgrounds.
Reporting Summaries
This feature promised to be a game-changer by allowing you to record, transcribe, and summarize audio—a handy tool for students and professionals alike. Unfortunately, it isn’t integrated into the Voice Memos app as expected. Instead, recordings and their transcriptions are stored in the Notes app, where a preview summary appears. Clicking into the note reveals the full transcript along with an alternative summary that can be inconsistent. Integrating this feature directly into Voice Memos would greatly improve its usability.
Visual Intelligence
Available only on the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro, Visual Intelligence is accessed by long-pressing the dedicated camera control button. This feature offers a full-screen viewfinder with three buttons: a shutter, an “ask” button (to query ChatGPT about what you’re seeing), and a “search” button (to perform a reverse image search via Google). Although the interface is visually appealing and responsive, the concept isn’t entirely new—similar functionality was seen on devices like the Galaxy S8. Nonetheless, the improved accuracy and on-device processing suggest potential for further development.
ChatGPT Integration
A notable addition is Siri’s integration with ChatGPT. When you ask Siri a question that falls outside its typical scope—such as requesting a recipe or planning a trip—it can prompt you to use ChatGPT for a more detailed answer. This feature is free, requires no ChatGPT account (unless you want to save query history or exceed free daily limits), and emphasizes user privacy by ensuring that data isn’t used to train third-party models. Additionally, there’s even a built-in option to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus.
Marketing vs. Actual Innovation
Apple has heavily emphasized Apple Intelligence in its advertising, presenting it as a revolutionary, game-changing technology. However, while some features are genuinely useful, the overall experience doesn’t quite match the groundbreaking claims made on Apple.com.
Standout Features
- Background Eraser in Photos – One of the best implementations we’ve seen, even outperforming Google’s version. It works impressively well and is a genuinely useful tool.
- Visual Intelligence – This feature has great potential, although it’s still developing and not yet as impactful as Apple suggests.
The Best Upgrade: More RAM
Perhaps the most significant improvement brought by Apple Intelligence is increased base memory across devices:
- More RAM in every iPhone, improving overall performance.
- Base memory on Macs is now 16GB, making Mac Mini an incredible deal compared to previous models.
Final Thoughts
Apple Intelligence has promise. Things will only improve from here. While it may not yet be the groundbreaking revolution Apple portrays, some of its features and system improvements are definitely worth acknowledging. Looking ahead, we can expect even more enhancements in future updates.