Five Apple Intelligence Features I Use All the Time
After months of slow updates, the picture for Apple Intelligence is starting to become clearer. We’re a long way from the Siri-does-it-for-you future we were promised last June. But many of the basics have already been created. And that’s a lot .
As Apple struggles to find its footing, iOS 18 is bombarded with so many artificial intelligence features that it’s sometimes hard to remember which new feature goes where. Over the past couple of months, since I got access to the beta, I’ve tried every feature available to me, and while some features are still clearly unfinished, there are some features that I keep coming back to.
If you’ve been confused about Apple Intelligence or just find it confusing, there are ways to make it easier. Of course, you’ll need a compatible iPhone to use Apple Intelligence , and you’ll need to enable the feature in Settings > Apple Intelligence and Siri > Apple Intelligence.
Clean up your photos
Cleaning is one of the Apple Intelligence features that I have used many times over the past couple of weeks and have recommended it to my friends. It helped me remove people from the background of my beach vacation photos and even helped me save one of my favorite engagement photos: With a simple swipe of my finger, I was able to remove an electrical outlet eyesore from the photo.
You’ll find the Cleanup feature in the Photos app. Select a photo, click the Edit button, and go to the Cleanup tab. Here you can trace, highlight or color any object you want to remove. If the function detects that something is out of place, it will prompt you to get rid of it. Sometimes the automatic detection doesn’t work, but I’ve found that zooming in and manually highlighting helps. For more information, check out our detailed guide to using the Cleanup feature .
Enter text in Siri (and ChatGPT)
Apple Intelligence introduces a bright and colorful new Siri. It’s nothing more than a fresh coat of paint at this point, but one thing I’ve really found useful is the new Type to Siri feature . You double-tap the home bar and Siri appears with a keyboard. Now you can write any command and send it.
It gets even better if you integrate ChatGPT. If you start a sentence with “Ask ChatGPT” (this works with voice too), Siri will bypass its own knowledge base and ask ChatGPT directly for help. You can then talk to ChatGPT in the same window and copy ChatGPT’s response.
When to Use Writing Tools
I’m not a big fan of using AI tools for any type of professional writing, but I do like using Apple’s Write Tools feature in the Notes app for things like creating a short list from a long note or summarizing. long-term study. (Parents may want to block writing tools on their children’s computers, however.)
The Writing Tools icon is found in the Notes app toolbar and can also be found in the pop-up menu when you select text in any text-based app, such as Mail.
Summarize all cases
Apple Intelligence can summarize a wide variety of data. You’ll find a Summary button in the Reader view to get a summary of the web page, and the Mail app will also give you a summary at the top. But the most eye-catching part of this feature is the notification summary.
Here, Apple will take multiple notifications from the same app, conversation, or thread and summarize them for you in just one sentence. If you belong to countless iMessage groups, you might want to try this.
However, the jury is still out on how useful notification summaries are. Since they are generated using LLM, there is a possibility of hallucinations and misinterpretation . This becomes an issue when it tries to summarize various headlines from a news app (the BBC already has complaints about this , and it could lead to Apple adding warning labels to notification summaries).
As with all things AI, I advise you to remain vigilant. I have this feature enabled for messaging apps because I find summaries useful; However, if there is anything even remotely important, I will go in and read it manually. And I suggest you turn off the notification summary feature for things like the news app and banking apps. You can do this by going to Settings > Notifications > Notification Summary .
Here’s the hidden one: Apple Intelligence is expanding on the new call recording feature in an interesting way. This feature is available for all phones running iOS 18.1. But if you have Apple Intelligence enabled, your iPhone will transcribe the call in real time and prompt you to create a summary.
Switch to Dynamic Focus Mode
We’ve been wanting to create a smart Do Not Disturb mode for a long time, and now with Apple Intelligence you get a new focus mode called Reduce Interruptions. This focus mode acts as a smart filter: notifications it deems important (like a message from your bank or a call from your boss) get through even when you’re in Do Not Disturb mode. Like regular focus mode, this feature is fully customizable : go to Settings > Focus > Reduce Interruption .
Apple Intelligence Still Needs Improvement
You may have noticed that many Apple Intelligence features, such as Image Playground, Genmoji, and Visual Search, didn’t make the list. This is because these features, although in beta, are still under development.