Everyone seems to want to use AI to create summaries, and Apple Intelligence is ready to do the same. You can summarize emails, summarize messages, and even summarize notifications from third-party apps. Some of these features are useful, like when your email app’s overview brings up urgent emails, but you might have missed them if you were just looking through a large collection of emails. . But more often than not, you just swipe through the overview to read all your notifications.
Speaking of which, Safari has a built-in summarization feature, but it requires the web page to be in reader mode. This makes it difficult to find these smart features and remember that they exist. At least I was able to summarize the 11,000 word story and get the gist even when I didn’t have time to sit down and read it. (Sorry.) I’ll forgive you if you summarize this review.
As a journalist who attends multiple briefings a month, perhaps the most useful Apple Intelligence feature for me is the new transcription tools in Notes, the Voice Memos app, and even the Phone app. Click Record in Voice Memos or Notes and the app will transcribe the conversation in real time. If you’re on a phone call, tap the record button to notify both parties, start recording the call, and save the transcription in your Notes app.
For all of this, a lot depends on the quality of the other person’s microphone. Either way, it’s definitely better than no transcription at all. It’s a shame there aren’t speaker labels like in Google’s Recorder app. You also cannot search these recordings to find specific quotes. (Technically, you can add the transcript to your notes in the Notes app, but it requires an extra step.)
The Photos app also brings Apple Intelligence, and the highlight here is the cleanup feature. Similar to Google’s Pixel smartphones, which introduced Magic Eraser over three years ago, you can now remove unwanted objects in the background of your iPhone photos. This worked pretty well in my experience, but I was a little surprised that Apple could erase anything so freely. I completely erased the presence of my eyes in the selfie. I erased all the fingers from my hands. (Google doesn’t allow you to erase parts of a person’s face.)
Video: Julian Chokkatu
I then erased the mug that was in front of my face when I went to take a sip. Cleanup tried to generate the rest of the face that was previously hidden, but with horrible results. (By the way, I tried this on a Pixel 9 and the results were just as bad, but Google gave me more options.) As my colleague said in Slack: “Both appear to have been trained on images of Bugs Bunny.”
More features are coming to Apple Intelligence. Image Playground allows you to generate images. Genmoji allows you to create new types of emojis that only exist in your mind for now. Siri will be better able to provide more contextual and relevant information. But once these features arrive later this year, we’ll have to take a closer look at Apple Intelligence again. Remember, Apple Intelligence is part of the upcoming iOS 18 update, but it’s only available on iPhone 15 Pro, 15 Pro Max, and some devices across the iPhone 16 series.
