We tried Apple Intelligence, it's smart and plays the part

Some would say Apple is late to the party, stylishly so. And that has been the case with many a products and features. Yet, somehow it gets it right most of the time. Will that be the case with Apple Intelligence as well?

Now that Apple’s much-anticipated Intelligence features have finally landed (though still not for everybody; all of you need to wait until late October), and one can't help but wonder if they're worth all the fuss. From Writing Tools to help you write to Clean up that’ll get rid of distractions in your pictures, there are quite a few, if not many, new features to play around with.


Notifications Summaries will tame your digital deluge

One such feature is Notification Summaries. As the name implies, it'll serve you a summary of your notifications. Simple, isn't it? Yes, but it is the feature that has impressed the most.

Suppose you are someone who gets a barrage of texts every day; it's taxing to go through them, isn't it? And there are times when one doesn't really want to read all of it. That is where Apple Intelligence comes to the rescue. It simply summarises the load of texts into a line or two, giving a gist of what the texts are about.

Not just texts, but it can also summarise notifications from other apps as well; it can summarise them all.


Your personal editor, Writing Tools

If you are one who hates typos and grammar mistakes one makes, and one goes "ugh" when reading them after hitting the send button, the Writing Tools is for you.

One doesn't like to wear the writer's hat every time, especially when texting or just writing a casual email or scribbling thoughts for a story.




So, for times like this, one can just hold and press the text, and run Writing Tools through it to proofread it or rewrite it into something better (though one does trust one's instincts better for that). Or even make it reader-friendly, professional, or just concise it if you have written too much. There are also options to create a summary, key points, lists, or a table out of text as well.

The language models run pretty quickly; you'll have the rewritten text in a second or two. One big plus has been that you can also use the Writing Tools offline, at least the basic proofreading and rewriting tools.

You can also use the writing chops to smartly reply to emails and messages. While the intelligence does get context most of the time and shows you the fitting reply, it does falter sometimes to not understand what the text really is about, specifically if the texts are multilingual.


Photos gets AI’d with Clean Up, intelligent search, and Memory Movie




Then, there's Clean Up. It works as the name suggests, cleaning up pictures nicely, most of the time. If you have a picture that doesn't have too many obstructions, then it'll work like magic. But give Clean Up a try on pictures of Chandni Chowk streets, and you'll see blemishes left behind that'll tell anyone you used an eraser on it. Oh, and Apple does mention in the metadata that the picture has been modified if you use Clean Up on it.

Search in Photos is also getting intelligent. So, you'd be able to search for photos or videos much more naturally, like searching for more specific things using a more natural language description.

Another intelligence feature in the Photos app is Create a Memory Movie. Remember how the Photos app has this Memories tab, which shows you short clips made out of your pictures and videos? So, those are premade, and you can't actually make one by yourself. But now you can create one memory movie that you want to see.

All you need to do is enter a description, and the intelligence will find the best photos and videos that fit that. The animation while the movie gets made is simply beautiful. The movie itself comes out pretty nice; the clips are arranged per the storyline the intelligence identifies would be the best, and there are also chapters to support the narrative.


Call recording on iPhone, finally

The Apple Intelligence feature that most people would be waiting for is Call Recording. Yes, it's an intelligence feature. So, once you enable Apple Intelligence, you'll see the option to record phone calls. Once recorded, the recording will be saved in the Notes app, and automatically transcribed and summarised. Then, you can also transcribe the voice memos.


Tit bits of intelligence throughout the OS

Then, there are sprinkles of intelligence throughout the iOS (and iPadOs and macOS). No, Apple Intelligence won't select the best colour for your tinted apps based on the wallpaper. But what it can do is summarise messages in Messages and Mail, and also give you replies based on what's in those messages. Then, intelligence will work in the Mail app to prioritise the emails which it thinks should be on top of your mailbox.

There's a new Focus mode that uses Apple Intelligence, called Reduce Interruption , which also uses intelligence models to limit notifications to the most important ones.


Siri 's makeover

Siri has also received its much-due glow-up. Though it's still pretty much the same old Siri, not the smart one that Apple promised us earlier this year. But it has had a facelift. It's not an orb anymore, but now it lights up all around your phone in a spectrum of colours.

If you don't like calling out Siri every time, you can now also type to Siri. Just double-tap on the bottom bar, start typing, and you'll also see relevant queries that Siri thinks you want to ask.




Siri now also knows deeply about the products it runs on, like iPhones , iPads, Macs, and even Apple Watches and AirPods. It knows about their features and settings, so if you stumble upon the question of what to do and how to do something on your iPhone, then Siri can help you out. It can help you with quite a few things, like you can ask it about how to turn on Wi-Fi, or the procedure to enable iMessage. It works most of the time, but at times it does redirect to search results for some questions.

That's all the smarts Siri is gaining for now. The more complicated stuff like richer language understanding, personal context, and ChatGPT integration will be coming later, hopefully by early next year.


Some now, some later

As for the other intelligence features, especially the ones that have to do with image generation like Image Playground and Genmoji , which Apple showed off earlier this year, are also slated to come by the end of this year with the iOS 18.2 release. Visual Intelligence , which is touted to be a big feature for the iPhone 16, is also expected to release later in 2024.


It’s all about experience

Even when all the features roll out, Apple Intelligence would not have a feature that Pixels and Galaxies does not. Sure, Android users might scoff at call recording or photo clean-up, features they've had for ages. But Apple's trump card? It's all about how seamlessly these smarts blend into the OS experience.

For example, with the Notification Summaries, you don't really have to do anything; just turn on Apple Intelligence, and all your notifications will be summarised. As for the Writing Tools, you don't have to open up another app; you can use them within the flow of your writing. Also, all of this works in a snap, even the Clean Up, and it's all done on-device.

Then, Siri's colourful makeover or the ability to whip up custom memory movies with a simple description, these little touches make things that adds up to the whole experience. While they might not leave you awestruck, you'll likely find yourself pleasantly surprised at how nicely and easily all the intelligence features work.

But, the catch is it’s not going to be available for all. While the iPhone 15 Pro models from yesteryear could run intelligence, its regular siblings could not. And if you are one who has the iPhone 15 from last year, you will have to upgrade to the newer iPhone 16. It’s a little disappointing, but it is what it is. As for the iPads and Macs, you need to have one with the M1 chip or newer.