5 Surprisingly Innovative Ideas Hidden in Apple Intelligence
Apple released a flood of information this week touting Apple Intelligence, promising an AI-powered transformation of your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Even after all the announcements, there are still plenty of unanswered questions from Apple. But while I’m mostly skeptical that Apple Intelligence will catch up to Google and OpenAI, that doesn’t mean there weren’t some interesting ideas and cool innovations on display. Here are five ways the “Glowtime” event brightened my opinion of Apple Intelligence.
1. Give Siri a brain
Yes, the Siri upgrade that Apple has been bragging about is long overdue, but that doesn’t make it boring. I haven’t used Siri for anything beyond the most basic weather and timer tasks for a long time now. A native voice assistant that can actually converse better or better than its rivals could change how I and many other Apple device owners interact with the native voice assistant.
Even if I could keep up with the speed at which I speak and remember context between tasks, that would make a big difference. The link to written prompts so you can switch between speech and text is also a nice improvement. The glowing visual look for Siri (hence the Glowtime event title) really rounds it out. It reminds me of when Apple Maps broke away from Google’s data and was a complete mess for a while before finally becoming useful again. Sometimes innovation just means being able to seize the moment. Let’s hope the next big upgrade isn’t nearly two decades away.
2. AI eyes
One particularly underrated aspect of Apple Intelligence is how it lets your device better define 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 to ChatGPT or Google to explain what it sees. Sure, it’s a lot like Google Lens, and maybe it’s just a fun way to quickly search for information about what’s happening near you. But if you have low vision, this is the kind of accessibility feature that can really empower your independence. It was this feature that convinced a visually impaired friend of mine to get the iPhone 16.
3. AI writing right now
ChatGPT and its many rivals and imitators have all centered text composition and editing as their core function, so Apple showing off its new AI Writing Tools was on some levels just saying, “We can do that too.” But by bringing text summarization, proofreading, and related tasks directly into Mail, Notes, Pages, and other apps, a small but very real bit of friction that has always irked me a little bit disappears. The new tools mean you don’t have to go through the extra step of copying text into another app, or rely on an API that may or may not perform as well as the app itself if you want to apply AI editing or summarization to it. Again, increasing accessibility for people who may not be power users is a good thing in my book.
4. Keeping your AI private
This is one where Apple could brag about how AI fits well with its product culture, which has always made privacy a major selling point. Apple Intelligence simply extends that way of thinking by processing most of your AI requests directly on your device, or via its Private Cloud Compute when the task requires more processing power. That’s no small feat, considering how much of the AI debate revolves around who can collect and use people’s data for training AI models or related purposes. Apple claims to have hit the sweet spot of AI flexibility and data privacy, which is a way of thinking about AI that’s frankly refreshing.
5. Genmoji Giants
I saved the most unique part of Apple Intelligence for last, because honestly, there’s no real comparison between other AI developers and Genmoji.
The ability to create custom emoji is a nice twist on AI image makers, but being able to insert Genmoji into messages, emails, and other communications as if they were traditional emoji is where Apple scores a clear win, even over what Google Gemini and Android can currently do. 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).