Apple has been hyping up its new AI-driven initiative, Apple Intelligence, as a game-changing feature across its product lineup. Announced at WWDC 2024, this technology was expected to revolutionize the user experience. However, six months later, many of these promised features have yet to fully launch. The new iPhones debuted in September without any Apple Intelligence functionality, and while some software updates have rolled out, the complete feature set isn’t expected to be available until March 2025.
With that in mind, let’s dive into the Apple Intelligence features that have been released so far and evaluate whether they live up to the promise.
Writing Tools
One of the more publicized Apple Intelligence features is the set of writing tools available across iPhone, iPad, and Mac (but notably absent on Vision Pro). These AI-powered tools allow users to refine their writing by making text friendlier, more professional, or more concise. They also offer proofreading assistance and the ability to summarize or format text into tables. While technically functional, the tools exhibit some odd UI redundancy and don’t seem significantly better than existing AI-assisted writing tools. For professionals, their usefulness is questionable, as they primarily adjust tone rather than enhance content in a meaningful way.
Notification Summaries
This feature attempts to condense multiple notifications from the same app or contact into a single, digestible message. While it might sound useful, in practice, it rarely improves the user experience. Instead of offering genuinely helpful summaries, it often fails to capture essential details, leading many users to disable the feature entirely.
Genmoji
This AI-powered feature lets users create custom emojis by describing them in text. While it can be amusing, it has limited practical application. The AI does enforce some content restrictions, but inconsistencies remain—some unexpected requests get through, while others are rejected. For most users, this will likely be a novelty rather than a game-changer.
Image Playground
Apple’s standalone AI image generator allows users to create cartoon-style images by describing them in text. Users can also customize images using preset themes, characters, and accessories. While it works quickly and efficiently, it lacks photorealistic rendering, which limits its appeal. Much like Genmoji, this feature is fun but not particularly groundbreaking.
Priority Notifications
This feature is designed to highlight important notifications while filtering out less relevant ones, particularly in Apple’s Mail app and Focus mode. For those who rely on Apple Mail, this could be a useful addition. However, users of third-party mail apps won’t benefit from it. Overall, it’s a feature that has existed in other ecosystems for years, making it feel less like an innovation and more like a catch-up move by Apple.
Photo Editing Enhancements
Apple has added AI-powered background object removal to its Photos app, similar to Google’s Magic Eraser. It works well, often outperforming Google’s version in terms of precise object selection. While a useful tool, it is one of the few AI-driven photo features Apple has introduced, leaving much room for improvement compared to competitors who have already integrated more robust AI tools.
Recording Summaries
This feature enables automatic transcription and summarization of recorded conversations, which could be a game-changer for students and professionals alike. However, it is oddly not integrated into the Voice Memos app, requiring users to go through the Notes app instead. While transcription quality is high, the workflow feels unnecessarily complicated.
Visual Intelligence
Currently available only on the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro, this feature allows users to scan objects and retrieve information using AI. It provides two functions: “Ask,” which allows users to query AI about an object, and “Search,” which performs a reverse image lookup. While the UI is sleek, similar features have existed for years on other platforms. This feels like a refinement rather than a groundbreaking development.
ChatGPT Integration in Siri
One of the most anticipated AI updates is Siri’s integration with ChatGPT. When users make complex requests beyond Siri’s usual capabilities—such as asking for travel itineraries or recipes—they are prompted to use ChatGPT. Apple has assured users that queries made through this integration will not be used to train OpenAI’s models. Additionally, users can link their ChatGPT accounts for more advanced features. While this integration is a step forward, Siri itself has yet to receive major AI-driven enhancements.
Features Still to Come
Several Apple Intelligence features are still in development and expected to launch in future updates. The most promising of these is an upgraded Siri, which will supposedly gain deeper in-app control, allowing users to execute more complex actions within apps. If implemented well, this could finally give Siri a meaningful edge over other virtual assistants.
Final Thoughts
While Apple Intelligence introduces some interesting tools, most of them feel like iterative improvements rather than groundbreaking innovations. The writing tools, image generation features, and notification management systems may appeal to niche users, but they lack the widespread impact Apple originally suggested. Siri’s future updates hold the most promise, but until those materialize, Apple Intelligence remains more of a work in progress than a revolution.
