“Apple does things practically.” Or, “Apple is late because it’s perfecting the tech.” “Would you prefer being the first or the best?” These statements are merely a few of the recurrent disputes that you’ll encounter in any passionate Reddit thread or social media post seeking to stir up controversy.

However, there’s an element of truth to them as well. Alongside, there’s a considerable amount of concealed technology that sometimes takes a decade to surface. Apple Intelligence serves as the prime example of such a significant leap and is regarded as Apple’s response to the rush in generative AI.

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Apple Intelligence made a soft launch late last month with the iOS 18.1 developer beta, offering people their initial opportunity to give it a try for themselves. And that’s precisely what I did.

AI isn’t anything novel for Apple

Bruno Cordioli / Flickr

But first, let’s have a brief introduction on how we arrived at this point. Do you recall the Apple Newton MessagePad? Its widely derided handwriting recognition feature, internally code-named Rosetta, was released in 1995. Apple engineer Steve Salomon conceived this technology in 1987.

Its foundation was based on neural networks, with assistance from segmentation and a language model that consumed dictionaries and probabilistic grammar. Does this sound familiar? Well, that’s your typical AI essence spreading all over social media by the AI enthusiasts.

By 2014, Apple had already shifted Siri – without any public announcement – to the benefits of machine learning, such as deep neural networks, natural language processing, and convolutional neural networks.

Apple

The point I’m attempting to convey here is that even the most ordinary Apple products have been providing cutting-edge AI for several years. From transforming your most delightful pictures into a memory film to learning your phone usage habits to extend battery life, machine learning has been at the core of the iPhone for quite some time now.

Apple Intelligence was merely an attempt to pacify shareholders who were apparently discontented upon seeing all those “ChatGPT can change your life and make you a millionaire” posts on X and were concerned that their blue-chip investment was lagging behind. Therefore, it’s no astonishment that Apple Intelligence didn’t truly evoke a wow from the WWDC 2024 audience. It took the safe and practical route – “AI for the rest of us,” as Apple puts it.

Apple Intelligence has several distinct aspects. It can summarize websites, intelligently sort your notifications, generate images, and much more. It also pledges to enhance your writing skills with Apple’s new Writing Tools – a suite of features that, according to Apple, “help you find just the right words virtually everywhere you write.” It’s one of the major focuses of Apple Intelligence, and it’s what I’ve concentrated on the most during my interaction with Apple Intelligence thus far. Here are my initial impressions.

Hands-on with Apple’s Writing Tools

Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

“Everywhere words matter,” proclaims Apple’s tagline for its Writing Tools feature. But is it truly effective?

Well, it functions, but I wouldn’t entrust it with my professional work. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, it has a tendency to miss the main point. Secondly, there’s an entire universe of ethical quandaries associated with it. Just take a look at the email I composed to an academic seeking her expert insights.

Apple Intelligence example
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

Apple Intelligence did a grammatically flawless job in rewriting it, but it overlooked the two most significant and specific points that I hoped to discuss with my source. For comparison, here’s what I obtained from Claude with a basic “rewrite this” prompt.

Claude example
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

Mind you, this was the first mail task on which I employed Writing Tools. But the situation worsens. I selected the mail contents and picked the “Professional” preset, hoping that Apple Intelligence would make my text sound more, well, professional.

The outcome was a rather significant failure that omitted the subject and created an entirely new request, something I didn’t initially ask for. My original email was regarding an interview request and recommendations for research material. This is what Apple Intelligence presented to me:

“I am writing to express my interest in the opportunity to intern with your esteemed institution.”

Apple’s summarizer misses the most crucial details.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

But it keeps missing the point. Again and again. Especially with the Summary, Key Points, and List features that are part of the Writing Tools bundle. The failures are consistent across Apple’s own apps and third-party options such as Gmail, in case you were wondering.

I attempted to summarize an email about an auction covering vintage Apple items related to Steve Jobs’ legacy. The email mentioned a functional Apple-1 computer as the “standout” item. Writing Tools missed the crowning jewel in all its AI iterations. For comparison, this is the summary I received from Shortwave, an excellent email app that derives power from OpenAI’s latest GPT-4o model.

Shortwave’s email summaries are concise, accurate, and don’t miss crucial details.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

The Shortwave email summary is precise. It selects the most relevant details, particularly the real focus of attention, from a lengthy text. The app accomplishes this for free and doesn’t require an iPhone 15 Pro either. It’s actually hardware-independent.

Apple’s Writing Tools perform marginally better with long notes, but they have a habit of missing essential details. I believe the failures also have something to do with the pitfalls of what Apple considers as the appropriate length for a “summary” and what the appropriate level of details should remain while still qualifying the response as a “concise” version.

Another issue is the lack of flexibility and versatility. In fact, there’s no scope for it at all. There’s no manual adjustment feature in the Writing Tools kit. What Apple deems “Friendly” might not be friendly enough. Far superior alternatives are already available.

Paragraph AI is a lot better and lives as a keyboard in every app.
Joe Maring / Digital Trends

Take Paragraph AI, for instance, a GPT-powered writing tool that exists as a mobile keyboard and a browser extension. It provides you with a series of slider-based controls for adjusting the writing tone across presets, such as informal/formal, friendly/assertive, and pessimistic/optimistic.

Moreover, you can have it transform your paragraphs into lists, text message format, email, and a comprehensive article, complete with the word length adjustment facility. Of course, it can also create replies, a feature that only requires a quick copy-paste operation. The entire system functions extremely well.

And here’s the best part, which actually contradicts Apple’s own promise of deep system-level AI integration. Paragraph AI exists as a keyboard on your phone, just like Gboard or the iPhone’s own feature-limited keyboard, meaning you can use it in any app of your choice. Apple is awaiting for third-party apps to fully embrace the Apple Intelligence bundle.

Proofreading in action. But it doesn’t happen in real time. Hello, Grammarly!
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

Now, there’s ample room for improvement. After all, this is merely the beta phase of testing Apple Intelligence, so some rough edges are to be expected. Moreover, Apple is by no means short of funds – certainly not after generating approximately $29 billion in operating cash flow in its latest quarter – or top industry talent. In other words, Apple Intelligence can reasonably anticipate a significant amount of enhancements in the immediate future.

Plenty of work to be done

Apple Intelligence will make you cool images. But it ain’t really “AI for all.”
Apple

Apple Intelligence offers a plethora of fancy features, but not all of them are likely to gain mainstream or long-term acceptance. Genmojis and the ability to create custom images within a few seconds? Yes, it sounds enjoyable. But no, I’m not going to use it every day. My teenage brother might.

But even for him, I believe the existing collection of “rad” GIFs and the emoji arsenal is sufficient to showcase his sense of humor in a chat rather than writing a full-text prompt to create a custom image. It might be helpful on certain occasions, but not in lively chats where quick wit and sharp retorts are more crucial than masterfully created AI art.

Email summaries? Certainly sounds practical. But let’s be honest here. We use emails for serious matters. For chats about K-pop stars and spicy leftovers, we have iMessage, WhatsApp, etc. Email is for serious content, such as work communication, academic endeavors, tedious tax tasks, and other similar activities.

It’s not difficult to perceive the dangers of ignorance. And the way Apple Intelligence is currently handling it, I might just lose my job. Intelligent notification sorting and summarization follow a similar pattern. I wouldn’t want to take the risk of an AI determining what’s important for me and bypassing the focus mode settings.

No thanks. I’ll handle it myself by customizing it for each app. On the surface, Writing Tools seems to be the most practical element in the Apple Intelligence kit. But it comes with its own ethical baggage.

Apple Intelligence’s Mail summarizer
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

Over the past few months, I’ve inquired of editors at various newsrooms about the ethics of integrating AI into their workflow. When it comes to the editorial aspect, almost everyone is undecided – or outright rejects it. The majority simply won’t allow AI to touch a story, from the initial draft to copy corrections and material editing.

So, exactly who is this entire Writing Tools bundle targeted at? I’m not certain. As a reporter, I can’t comprehend the usefulness due to the ethical dilemma. In my alternate role as a troublemaker in the comments section on Reddit and Slack, I will never admit that AI can be more sassy than me. And certainly not when it’s more prone to errors than my forgetful way of life.

I’m sure there’s an audience leading a less risky life – or even more carefree, I’d say. But for now, Apple Intelligence’s Writing Tools seem more like a half-baked attempt to catch up. The upside is that Apple has ample time to improve things before the public release of Apple Intelligence, and the company undoubtedly has its work cut out for it.