Apple Intelligence is essentially a fancy brand name for Apple’s newfound focus on AI, sparked by the huge success of ChatGPT.

Here’s a look at some of the best features of Apple Intelligence, which is coming to the UK via the new iOS 18.2 operating system.

ChatGPT Siri integration

The biggest piece of Apple Intelligence is certainly the integration of OpenAI’s hugely popular chatbot ChatGPT with Siri, Apple’s built-in virtual assistant.

With better “language understanding capabilities” enabled by ChatGPT, Siri will help you with multiple apps and “accelerate everyday tasks,” Apple said.

You can hold down the side button to activate Siri as usual, but with ChatGPT behind it, Siri can “answer thousands of questions about how to do something,” which wasn’t possible before.

For example, you could say, “Play the podcast Jamie recommended,” and Siri will find the episode and play it without the user having to remember whether it was mentioned in a text message or email.

Or you could ask, “When does Mom’s flight land?” and Siri will find the flight details and compare them with real-time flight tracking to determine an arrival time.

AI generated emoji

If you never find the emoji you’re looking for in chat conversations, Apple has the answer.

One of the more entertaining parts of Apple Intelligence is AI-generated emojis, which Apple has dubbed “Genmoji” (a mix of “generated” and “emoji”).

In the Messages app, you can enter a short description of the emoji you want – for example, “Smiley relaxing and carrying cucumbers” or “Squirrel DJ”.

Similar to AI tools that only need a few words to create strange works of art, Genmoji returns an AI-generated approximation of what you imagined from this single prompt.

If you don’t like what the AI ​​did for you, you have a few backup options to choose from.

Clean up

Apple’s clean-up tool for the Photos app performs extremely clean edits on photos – with no tell-tale signs that the snap has been tampered with in any way.

This allows users to remove “disturbing objects” from the background of a photo – for example, a photo bomber in the background of a family photo.

Clean Up is very similar to Google’s “Magic Eraser” photo editing technology for its Pixel phones, which has been heavily promoted in Google ads in recent years.

However, some describe the technology as “Orwellian” because it can distort reality and “create a false memory.”

Regarding Clean Up, one commenter said that it “can be abused” because it “makes it easier to delete evidence.”

Picture playground

AI also powers a new image generation tool called Image Playground, available in multiple apps including News and Pages.

Image Playground allows users to create images in seconds, choosing from three styles: Animation, Illustration, and Sketch.

A promotional image appears to show a photo of a person being transformed into a video game-style 3D avatar wearing a spacesuit in the “animated” environment.

Similar to Genmoji, this “exciting” image creation tool will help iPhone owners “communicate and express themselves in new ways,” the company says.

Movie memories

Thanks to an iPhone’s massive media storage capabilities, it’s always tempting to look back at your photos and videos and feel a touch of nostalgia.

That’s why Apple created Movie Memories, an AI tool that creates the perfect home movie to watch on your device.

By entering a short description – for example, “Last summer in our garden” – the AI ​​can search your media library and compile photos and clips into a film “with its own narrative arc”.

And since no film is as good without a little music, Apple Music gives you song suggestions to match your memories.

Here too, Apple emphasizes the privacy aspect of using AI to search your private life.

“As with all Apple Intelligence features, user photos and videos on the device are kept private and are not shared with Apple or others,” it says.

AI writing tools

Using AI to make your writing more concise isn’t a new thing – for example, Microsoft’s Copilot AI creates initial drafts and suggests changes in Word.

But now Apple is jumping on the bandwagon with its own AI-powered writing tools.

The technician will rewrite, proofread, and summarize text in multiple apps, including Mail, Notes, and Pages, as well as some third-party apps.

“Whether it’s tidying up notes in class, making sure a blog post reads just right, or making sure an email is written perfectly, Writing Tools helps users feel more confident while writing “says the company.