Hello, Apple Intelligence (Or Just Grammarly with a Few Extra AI Features)
Here's what I liked and disliked after trying Apple Intelligence on iPhone and Mac.
Apple just released Apple Intelligence to its latest devices as part of an iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia update.
I’ve been testing Apple Intelligence on my iPhone and Mac and, to my surprise, not all of its AI features are available after the update. The features we can use today are mostly writing tools and photo enhancements, which makes me doubt whether Apple is catching up in AI.
In this article, I’ll share my honest review of Apple Intelligence.
Note: Apple Intelligence is compatible with iPhone 16 Plus/Pro/Max, iPhone 15 Pro/Max, M1 iPads, and M1/M2 Macs. Your device must have Siri and device language set to US English.
What I disliked
First, there’s Siri. The “new era for Siri,” as Apple called it, hasn’t started yet. In iOS 18.1, Siri only has the following upgrades:
New design: A nice glowing light that wraps around the iPhone screen
Product knowledge: Siri now has knowledge about your devices’ features and settings (I doubt users need Siri to teach them how to use their phones)
Richer language understanding: More natural communication with Siri (but not even close to ChatGPT Advanced Voice)
In other words, it’s almost the same Siri!
Cool Siri features like onscreen awareness (Siri takes action with things on your screen) and personal context are still unavailable on iOS 18.1. That said, Apple has been promoting these and other features at its events and website.
That leads me to one of the things I dislike the most—Apple Intelligence is an unfinished product.
Apple promoted its new iPhones as if they came with Apple Intelligence. Some even thought that all its features would be available on iOS 18.1. However, only a few who navigated Apple’s website and read those tiny words at the bottom of the page knew that some Apple Intelligence features were still not coming to iOS 18.1.
Features like the ChatGPT integration on Siri are still not available. Instead, we have basic features like searching for photos and videos in the Photos app or asking Siri how to use our iPhone.
It’s sad iPhone 16 users had to wait one month for an unfinished upgrade. Not to mention the Apple Intelligence waitlist or the fact that it’s only available in US English.
After trying Apple Intelligence on my iPhone and Mac, I can say that today Apple Intelligence is just Grammarly with some extra AI features.
I still liked some of the features available today. Here are my favorites.
What I liked
There are some features that you might find useful especially if you use your Apple devices for writing emails, notes, and editing photos.
#1 Writing Tools
Probably this is my favorite Apple Intelligence feature.
If you’ve been using AI writing tools like Grammarly or Quillbot, you’re already familiar with Apple Intelligence’s Writing Tools. This tool can help you proofread text, create a summary, find key points, and more. The best part is that it’s available nearly everywhere you write (including third-party apps) on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
On the iPhone, you only have to select a text and you’ll see Writing Tools available.
While on Mac, you’ll have to right-click a text, choose Writing Tools, and then click Show Writing Tools (in Notes and Mail you can open it by holding the pointer over the selected text).
Writers or anyone writing an email or a post on social media can benefit from this feature. In fact, I’m using this feature to proofread some paragraphs in this post. That said, I also have the Grammarly extension enabled on my browser, so I don’t think I’d use it a lot when writing on Chrome.
The comparison with Grammarly doesn’t end here. Like Grammarly, Apple Intelligence can generate summaries and smart replies.
#2 Smart Replies and Summaries
Another good feature is smart replies. It works on apps like Messages and Mails and helps you quickly draft a response with all the right details.
On Mails, you have to click on reply, and at the beginning of your draft, you’ll see two possible responses. I did a test with an email I got yesterday and I was satisfied with the responses it generated.
Apple Intelligence can also generate quick summaries of long email threads or unread messages in seconds. At the top of each email, we’ll see a summarize button that we have to tap to reveal a summary of an email and cut to the chase.
Safari is another app where we can generate summaries. Simply go to a site using Safari, and then click on the reader button located on the top, click Show Reader, and then click Summarize.
Here’s a summary I created of my article about prompt engineering.
On Notes, you can generate a summary of an audio recording by clicking the recording and then clicking on Summary. The same goes for phone call recording but in this case, the recording appears in the Call Recordings folder.
#3 Clean Up
The last cool feature I’d like to highlight is clean up. This helps you remove objects from your photos.
You only have to select a photo, click edit, and then click Clean Up in the toolbar. After that, some items may be highlighted automatically. You can quickly click to remove them. You can also click or circle what you want to remove.
That’s pretty much it! There are minor AI features that I didn’t include in this list because I don’t think they need much explanation (e.g., notification summary, priority notifications, or search for photos and videos by describing what you’re looking for).
Unfortunately, features like the ChatGPT integration, a smarter Siri, and creating images/Genmoji aren’t available yet.
For now, our Apple devices basically offer Grammarly with extra AI features.