Apple rolls out Apple Intelligence, but fails to wow AI crowd, for now

Apple has officially launched its new AI stack, Apple Intelligence, for certain iPhone, iPad and Mac users — however, early reviewers say the new AI tools haven’t lived up to the hype.

Apple’s new main AI feature, “Writing Tools,” allows users to refine their language by rewriting, proofreading and summarizing text in Mail, Messages, Notes, Pages and third-party apps, while users can now also have a “more natural conversation” with Apple’s virtual assistant Siri.

Users will have the option to access ChatGPT within Writing Tools and Siri, allowing them to benefit from its image and document-understanding capabilities without needing to switch between tools, Apple said.

However, some Apple users weren’t overly thrilled with the new AI features.

“We think the highly touted AI-transformed future still seems a long way off.”

“I've been living with a beta version of Apple Intelligence for over a month, and life hasn't changed much since its features arrived on my iPhone 16 Pro.”

“You might find yourself saying, ‘Is that it?’” Chokkattu added.

Accessing Apple Intelligence proved a problem of its own for many other Apple users.

United States-based Apple users must first have an Apple Intelligence-compatible device and install Apple’s latest software version before joining a waitlist.

Things are even more complicated for other users, who also have to change their region and language in settings to the “United States” and “English US” before joining the waitlist.

Apple made no mention of a waitlist in its Oct. 28 announcement.

Apple just announced its Apple Intelligence features for iPhone 16.

The 8 most impressive demos:

1. Apple Intelligence accessing the iPhone's camera for 'Visual Intelligence' on any surroundingspic.twitter.com/RtJK0FEvNk

— Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) September 9, 2024

The firm said it would roll out a new Priority Notifications feature in the coming months which has the “ability to draw on a user’s personal context to deliver intelligence that’s tailored to them.”