Apple released a deluge of information hyping up Apple Intelligence this week, promising an AI transformation of your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Even after all of the announcements, there are plenty of questions left unanswered by Apple. But, while I'm mostly skeptical about how much of Apple Intelligence is just playing catch up to Google and OpenAI, that doesn't mean there were no interesting ideas or fun innovations on display. Here are five ways the 'Glowtime' event brightened my opinion of Apple Intelligence.
1. Giving Siri a brain
Yes, the Siri upgrade Apple bragged about has been way too long in coming, but that doesn't make it unexciting. I've long since stopped using Siri for anything but the most basic weather and timer tasks. A native voice assistant that can actually converse and act better or better than its rivals might well change how I and a lot of other Apple device owners interact with the original voice assistant.
Even just being able to keep up with the speed I speak and remember the context between tasks would matter a lot. The link to written prompts so you can switch between voice and text is also a nice improvement. The glow-up of the visual look for Siri (hence the Glowtime event title) puts a bow on the whole thing. It reminds me of when Apple Maps decoupled from Google's data and was a complete mess for a while before finally becoming useful again. Sometimes innovation just means being able to meet the moment. Let's hope the next big upgrade doesn't take nearly two decades.
2. AI Eyes
A particularly underrated aspect of Apple Intelligence is how it allows your device to define better what the camera captures. The new Visual Intelligence and Camera Control features use AI to answer questions and explain objects and places around you, including contextual information like geographic location and time. It will even link with ChatGPT or Google to explain what it sees. Sure, it's a lot like Google Lens, and maybe it's just a nice way to speed up searching for information on what's happening near you. Still, if you are visually impaired, this is the kind of accessibility feature that could really boost independence. It was this feature that convinced a friend of mine with impaired vision that they should get the iPhone 16.
3. AI Writing Right Now
ChatGPT and its many rivals and imitators have all centered the composition and editing of text as their main feature, so Apple showing off the new AI Writing Tools was, on some levels, just saying, "We can do it too." But incorporating text summarization, proofreading, and related tasks directly into Mail, Notes, Pages, and other apps removes a small but very real bit of friction that has always slightly annoyed me. The new tools mean you won't have to take that extra step of copying text into a different app or relying on an API that may or may not perform as well as the app if you want to apply AI editing or summarization to it. Again, upping accessibility to people who might not be power users is a good thing in my book.
4. Keeping your AI private
This is one where Apple could boast about how AI fits well with its product culture, which has always made privacy a key selling point. Apple Intelligence simply extends that way of thinking by processing most of your AI requests either right on your device or through its Private Cloud Compute when the task requires more computational power. That's no small matter, considering how much of the AI debate revolves around who can snap up people's data and employ it for training AI models or related goals. Apple claims to have hit the sweet spot of AI flexibility and data privacy, which is a way of thinking about AI that is honestly refreshing.
5. Genmoji Giants
I saved arguably the most unique part of Apple Intelligence for last because, frankly, there's no real comparison among other AI developers to Genmoji.
The ability to create custom emojis is a fun take on AI image-makers, but being able to insert Genmojis into messages, emails, and other communications as if they were traditional emojis is where Apple scores a clear win even over what Google Gemini and Android can do at the moment. It's not a life-changing upgrade, but like the rest of Apple Intelligence's features, it adds to the other reasons people might want to buy an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. (inset Genmoji of a T-Rex looking at an iPhone while surfing a wave).
