Over the last few years, everyone has been talking about generative AI. Not only that, everyone was doing something about generative AI. Me and a lot of other people then started wondering when Apple would do something about it. At WWDC 2024 in June, the company announced Apple Intelligence. But so far, Apple Intelligence remains more of a concept than a reality. And here’s why.
Apple Intelligence recap
By now, you’re probably familiar with Apple Intelligence. It’s the set of AI-based tools made by Apple. It includes things like Writing Tools for proofreading and rewriting text, summarization of articles, emails and notifications, Genmoji, and even an app for generating illustrations.
Apple has also promised a brand new Siri powered by Apple Intelligence. This Siri is expected to be much smarter, more natural, faster and more reliable. The company also showed how the new Siri will be able to integrate deeply with apps, so that users will be able to ask the assistant to apply a filter to a specific photo.
When I saw all this during the keynote in June, I was really excited. After all, it was a bit disappointing to see all the competitors launching generative AI tools while Apple wasn’t showing much beyond promises. But then the WWDC keynote was over, and Apple Intelligence was still a concept.
A limited preview
The first beta versions of iOS 18 didn’t include any Apple Intelligence features, and the company was silent about when they would become available. A few weeks ago, the company confirmed that Apple Intelligence wouldn’t be ready in time for the September release of iOS 18.0. It has therefore introduced a new iOS 18.1 beta with Apple Intelligence. With asterisks.
Some limitations were already expected. Apple said in June that Apple Intelligence would only be available in US English first (which is bummer, but we’ll get to that later). But once the beta became available to developers, we realized that pretty much nothing that was announced in June is working in the current betas.
Right now, if you’re running iOS 18.1 beta with Apple Intelligence, all you can do is rewrite texts and summarize articles or notifications. There are some improvements to the Photos app (which now has a more natural search, which is amazing) and Siri has a new animation, as well as better understanding of contextual requests.
But the big promises for Apple Intelligence remain promises. We still can’t try out things like Genmoji, Image Playgrounds, erasing objects from photos, the new Siri with generative AI, or ChatGPT integration. And all we know is that these features will arrive “over the course of the next year.”
Apple Intelligence will struggle to catch up with its competitors
We’re talking about beta software. But the point here is that Apple is lagging behind its competitors. And in that aspect, it’s too far behind. What OpenAI does with ChatGPT is impressive (and Apple itself acknowledges this). Google has also announced some really cool new features for its Gemini AI assistant, and they’re being rolled out to users starting today.
These competitors are constantly introducing new features, while Apple seems to be struggling to introduce what the rest of the industry has already been doing for at least a year.
One thing that really struck me watching the latest Samsung and Google events is how they emphasize that their respective generative AIs already work in many countries and regions. Apple Intelligence is expected to remain available only in the US until next year.
After watching Google’s latest AI announcements, it’s hard to believe Apple is anything other than 2-3 years behind in this area — at least. https://t.co/fYxdQQ7CgC
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) August 13, 2024
While Apple Intelligence will be partially available to users by the end of this year, competitors will have even more features and support for even more languages by then. And that says a lot about Apple in recent years.
Some might argue that Apple has waited this long to do something better, or to do it right. While things like Apple’s Private Cloud Compute are certainly impressive, the perception as an end user is that Apple Intelligence isn’t doing anything that other AIs already can. I also don’t feel that the tools we have right now are any better.
I really hope to see Apple Intelligence getting better and running in more languages as soon as possible. However, given how Apple has handled everything recently, the short-term future of Apple Intelligence doesn’t look too promising to me.
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