Apple Intelligence so far: were promises kept?

The Verge

Apple Intelligence has been slowly rolling out over the past three months, and there’s still much more to come. But where are we now? And is it anything close to what Apple promised?

Transcript

00:00Let's go back to September.

00:02Apple launches the iPhone 16, and it is all about Apple Intelligence.

00:08Apple Intelligence.

00:09Apple Intelligence.

00:10Apple Intelligence takes us even further.

00:13And then we got the iPhone 16, and there was no AI on it.

00:18Apple Intelligence is here now, and it's been here for a few months.

00:22So, it's a fair time to ask, is this anything?

00:27That's a question we jokingly ask at The Verge when companies put AI in stuff.

00:33But it's a fair question to ask of Apple's AI, since we've had it for a while now.

00:38Was it worth the hype? Is it making our lives easier?

00:41Siri, what is a good place I could get coffee?

00:43I didn't get that.

00:44Right now I'm not so sure, but there's good reason to hope that it might be something after all.

00:49To answer the is this anything question, let's back up and look at what Apple Intelligence actually is.

00:55I think we can kind of group it into two buckets.

00:58There's things that help you create, and things that help you process information.

01:02On the creation side, there's writing tools.

01:05They're pretty standard fare for AI at this point.

01:07Stuff like changing the tone of your writing, producing summaries of your notes,

01:11or turning a chunk of text into a list or table.

01:14Personally, I haven't found these writing tools to be super useful, and they're kind of fiddly to use.

01:19But the summarization feature is actually pretty cool.

01:22Actually pretty cool.

01:23Especially if you pair it with voice transcription.

01:26I'm gonna need five outfits for Lennox.

01:30He's gonna need some toys.

01:32We'll need to bring some snacks.

01:34Baby monitor.

01:35Pajamas for him.

01:36Sunscreen.

01:37You know, some changes in clothes.

01:39Comfortable walking shoes.

01:41But also some flip-flops.

01:43Yeah, this should do it.

01:44Oh, it thinks my child's name is Lennox.

01:47Did it miss anything?

01:49Let's see.

01:52Yeah, I think it did okay.

01:54Let me get into a table.

01:57It did okay.

02:02The other creation tools are image-based, and they all kind of center around Image Playground,

02:07which is Apple's AI image generator.

02:10It was introduced in iOS 18.2, and it's a dedicated app,

02:14but it also unlocks image tools in other places throughout the OS.

02:18Image Playground lets you start with a person in your photo library,

02:22or a text prompt, or both.

02:24And you can pick from a few different styles and some suggested prompts

02:28based on locations or goofy accessories.

02:31It also lets you generate images in the Notes app,

02:34where you can take a rough sketch and turn it into something more polished.

02:38And of course there's Genmoji, which lets you create custom emoji based on your prompts.

02:43Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of all this.

02:46Image Playground is sort of fun, but the novelty wears off after a while,

02:50and you do get the telltale signs of AI.

02:53Oh god.

02:55There's just one extra finger down there.

02:58And it's kind of fun reacting with custom emojis,

03:01but they're really small, so it can be hard to tell what they are.

03:05I don't want to dismiss it all, because some people like Memojis,

03:09and I never use them.

03:11There's probably plenty of people who think it's a fun way to express themselves,

03:15and that's awesome.

03:17I'm just going to stick to the regular emojis.

03:21Then there's the other bucket, helping you process information.

03:24There's a few ways that Apple Intelligence does this,

03:27but I think the most well-known is notification summaries.

03:30You know the gist of it.

03:32You get a bunch of alerts from one source, like some texts all in a row,

03:36and your phone will use AI to give you a summary that you can read at a glance.

03:40It's helpful if you need to get caught up on a conversation quickly,

03:43but when it goes wrong, it can go very wrong.

03:46The results can be funny or really not funny.

03:49We've seen people get updates from their security cameras

03:52that make it sound like there's a home invasion happening.

03:55And AI botched BBC headlines so badly

03:58that Apple is actually changing how it presents the summaries.

04:02The summary text is in italics now,

04:04so you can clearly see at a glance what is AI.

04:07That's probably a good idea.

04:09Siri has a role to play in all this.

04:12It has a new glowing border,

04:14and it can understand the flow of natural language a bit better,

04:17so you don't have to use your yelling-at-a-robot voice as much.

04:21But it's basically the same old Siri for now,

04:23except that when you ask it a complex question,

04:26it can go ask ChatGPT for you.

04:29Go ask ChatGPT what the weather's like in Spain,

04:33in Barcelona, in late February.

04:35Here's an answer from ChatGPT.

04:37Here's an answer from ChatGPT.

04:39Oh.

04:41Spain experiences mild winter temperatures.

04:44So what should I pack for a trip in late February?

04:47Here's an answer from ChatGPT.

04:49There's a lot of text here.

04:52ChatGPT extends to visual intelligence too.

04:55On the iPhone 16, using the camera control

04:58will let you take a picture

05:00and get information about what you're looking at.

05:02This could be something like store hours or a quick translation,

05:06or you can have ChatGPT answer more complicated questions

05:09like, what can I make with these ingredients?

05:12So it told me I can make a salad or an omelette,

05:16which those are both good answers,

05:19but I don't feel like I needed artificial intelligence to tell me that.

05:23It can still make mistakes though, just like any chatbot.

05:26ChatGPT in visual intelligence told me

05:28I had a whole bunch of books on my shelf that just weren't there.

05:32I asked it to explain a Garfield cartoon to me,

05:35and it actually made up a joke that wasn't in the comic.

05:38It's interesting being able to access ChatGPT right from the operating system,

05:42and maybe that kind of opens up the sort of questions that will ask Siri.

05:47But personally, I forget that it's there.

05:50And that's where we're at now.

05:52We have a bunch of features that are kind of helpful,

05:55kind of funny, but mostly forgettable.

05:58If this is what the iPhone 16 was built for,

06:01then it doesn't feel very intelligent.

06:04Is this anything?

06:06The thing is, it's not everything.

06:09Apple has new features that it's planning on rolling out

06:12basically up until it releases iOS 19.

06:15And there's one update in particular that could make these smartphones feel a lot smarter,

06:20especially when it comes to Siri.

06:22iOS 18 actually has a framework called App Intents

06:26that will eventually let Siri take action in apps for you.

06:30For example, you'll be able to say,

06:32show me my photos of Stacey in New York wearing her pink coat.

06:36Then you might say, make this photo pop.

06:39And Siri will enhance it, and Siri will be able to take actions across apps.

06:44So you could say, add this to my note with Stacey's bio.

06:47And it will jump from the Photos app to the Notes app to make it happen.

06:51These are the things that could actually save us time using our phones,

06:55and it would deliver on the whole promise of a smart assistant.

06:59But we probably won't see these updates until the spring at the earliest.

07:03Right now, Apple Intelligence feels like a bunch of puzzle pieces

07:07that just haven't been put together.

07:09It really might be something.

07:11But it's just hard to say what.

07:13Yet.

07:15I'm going to be covering all the AI in all the phones this year,

07:19including everything else in iOS 18 all the way to iOS 19.

07:24So stay tuned, check out theverge.com, and we'll be in this together.

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