If you’ve been reading and watching ads for the new Apple iPhone 16 and its built-in “Apple Intelligence,” you may have been, like me, rubbing your hands together in eager anticipation of all the wonderful things that Siri and your iPhone will soon be able to do for you.
Yep, artificial intelligence was gonna be working for me instead of just endangering kids online. After seeing that first ad, I definitely planned on renaming my phone Monique and scheduling her to write my reviews and do my taxes. This new Apple Intelligence revolution was going to make my life a lot easier.
… And then I woke up.
I’ve had the new iPhone 16 for several weeks and in that time period I sorta got the feeling that the new Siri wasn’t all that different from the old one. She patently refused to be called Monique. And it’s really only recently that I’ve seen some new iOS features (the latest update being iOS 18.2 as of this writing) that I’ve thought might be kind of cool.
So, let’s take a minute and chat about some of the ways that Apple Intelligence may or may not be what you need in your life.
First of all, as I look at the new features that Apple is currently wrapping up in a bow and calling Apple Intelligence, they tend to fall into three categories: Things that can summarize my phone life. Things that can make my phone life more creative. And ways in which Siri can be a better phone life assistant.
Summarize Me
On the condensing and organizing front, Apple Intelligence has been crafted to help you winnow through the acres of flotsam that come your way on a daily basis. It can slap your Notification Center into shape, for one thing. And I found that to be most helpful with news articles. Apple Intelligence can effectively give me a condensed sentence or two that fills me in on a topic. And if I go to the article itself, it can also give me an AI generated “Reader” mode—a condensed version of the content that delivers “just the facts, ma’am.”
Apple Intelligence is also happy to help sort and summarize your messages into short little thumbnails. It can categorize your emails, prioritizing urgent messages and bundle less critical missives for later review. That can be useful.
However, letting AI decide what is important and what isn’t can be a tricky thing. Winking nods and jokes don’t translate well through the Apple Intelligence lens, for example. For that matter, the minute Ms. Siri Intelligence leaves something important out of a summary—or shuffles it off for later—is the minute you rethink her helpfulness.
Make Me Creative
There are some new creative tools in the Apple Intelligence mix that you might find helpful. The built-in writing tool, for instance, can quickly look over your typed out notes and missives and point out typos, make suggestions on your grammar and help you focus your verbiage. But, again, it comes with a good and bad side. On the plus, it’s very simple to work with. On the negative, it’s rather stiff. Don’t expect Hemmingway.
ImageWand is another sweet tool that can pep up your notes. This cool little feature can translate your rough scribble (sketched out with an Apple Pencil) into a nice little polished image. If you’re not the doodling type, it likely won’t be your cup of tea, but it’s still a fun little creative tweak.
Those picture-snapping fiends out there will also find the photo tools to be top shelf. AI will help you easily clean up your photos with intuitive abilities that erase background objects or people that you tap in photos. And you can very quickly pluck someone out of a photo or plop yourself down in a completely different background. Hey, those great pre-break-up vacay photos can live on problem- and ex-free.
Oh, and if you really like the idea of generating your own AI images and emojis, Apple Intelligence has you covered. When you download iOS 18.2 you can access Genmoji and Apple Image Playground. Genmoji lets you use pictures from your phone or typed-in descriptions to create your own custom emojis. So if you’ve always wanted that Christmas tree on fire with an elf roasting marshmallows emoji, you’re in luck.
Apple Image Playground is very similar, but it’s designed to create an image that you can use for your presentation, review, screen background, social media post, etc. Again, you start with a picture or type in a description that you want and then experiment with extras such as locations, costumes and the like. It’s much like the AI image generators you may have experimented with in the past, but it’s all done on your phone for private use. (And no subscription required.)
Assist Me
The last Apple Intelligence area where your faithful Siri steps up to get a boost is in the digital assistant arena. And let me just say that if you’re expecting your personal phone assistant to give and take in conversation like the AI woman in the movie Her, well, don’t. Siri won’t verbally walk you through a public presentation or discuss the intricacies of child rearing.
What Siri can do these days is some light organization and scheduling work. She’ll check your schedule, make a reservation, steer you toward a good local restaurant or even suggest the best time to start a road trip. And,at the very least, Siri will hang in there and grab the gist of your requests better than in the past. She’s much more capable of understanding you if you stumble or start over in the middle of your questions. And she’ll be ready for a follow up.
Tougher requests, beyond calendar scheduling and weather reports, are still a challenge, though. Apple has promised sweeter interaction abilities by the time they release iOS 18.4, so we’ll see how that plays out. For now, though, Apple has given Siri the ability to connect with ChatGPT for any deep-dive questions you may have. Of course, you can connect to ChatGPT on your own and on any phone. So that’s a mixed benefit.
Oops, Monique, er, Siri is reminding me through my Apple Watch that I have a meeting coming up, so I’ll finish my commentary on her abilities here. I’m sure there are lots of other little Apple Intelligence bits I could touch on, but the things above are the new tools and tweaks that I’ve been tinkering with.
Yep, there are interesting things on the horizon. And some creative ways that this new Apple Intelligence can aid your life. Just don’t believe every ad you see and don’t expect the moon quite yet.
Yes, I heard you, I heard you.
Gotta go.
3 Responses
Bob, May I kindly suggest that you stop referring to Siri as a “she”? Siri is not female. Siri, and Alexa and all the others are a machine, and you do yourself and us a disservice by blindly adopting the attitude that an AI can have human qualities and personality, and therefore it is an acceptable companion.
Agreed. After all, there are actually male Siri and Alexa voices available.
Other than making reservations for you how does the Siri help? Weather and calendar can be pulled up with a click and reviews as well on Google maps without using A.I. But I guess it is good if you need to check things while doing something like pottery or gardening when you don’t want to get your phone dirty.