Apple Intelligence: Here what's available now

Image: Mark Gurman

Apple gave developers a sneak peek at their new artificial intelligence suite, Apple Intelligence, but consumers will have to wait. The features won't arrive until iOS 18.1 (expected in October) and may not live up to the initial hype. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman discussed in his Power On newsletter. Here's what you can expect:

Available features:

• Smarter summaries: Summarize emails and text messages within notifications for a quick grasp of content, especially useful for long emails.
• Writing tools: This suite offers several helpful functionalities:
  • Transform paragraphs into lists or tables for better organization.
  • Summarize text for concise communication.
  • Proofread passages for typos and grammatical errors.
  • Rewrite content with different tones (professional, friendly, etc.)
• New Siri interface: The long-awaited interface update includes:
  • A new animation glow when Siri is activated.
  • Double-tap on the bottom of your device to activate "Type to Siri" for text input.
  • Improved ability to maintain context across multiple queries.
• Phone call recording with transcripts: Record calls and get them automatically transcribed and summarized for easy reference.
• Focus Mode: Reduce Interruptions: This mode acts like Do Not Disturb but allows important notifications (urgent texts, smart home alerts) to come through.

Missing features (coming later):

• Genmoji: Create personalized emojis using AI.
• Image Playground: Generate AI-powered photos.
• Advanced Siri: On-screen awareness to understand context based on what you're looking at (e.g., asking about a sports player you're viewing).
• Utilizing personal data to inform answers: Useful for things like booking a restaurant with friends after picking them up from the airport).
• Precise app control: Ask Siri to do tasks like look for specific documents or edit photos that it can then send to whoever you want.

While Apple Intelligence shows promise, competitors like Google and Samsung already offer more advanced AI features. Apple will need to catch up and release more innovative functionalities to truly lead the AI revolution.