After lagging behind the competition for the major part of 2023 and 2024, Apple finally unveiled its version of generative AI dubbed Apple Intelligence. Keeping the narcissistic rebranding of the abbreviation aside, Apple Intelligence promised to offer some nifty utilities to iOS and macOS users. From tools to help you write better to a revamped version of Siri (finally), Apple made some tall claims during the iPhone 16 announcement.

Eager to try out the features myself, I hit the update button on my Mac as soon as the latest build of macOS Sequoia was rolled out. I then went through the hassle of changing my Mac's region to the United States and the system language to English (US) since Apple Intelligence isn't available in my country yet. What followed was a series of disappointments and underwhelming results. So much so that I've now disabled Apple Intelligence so that I can put my Mac's resources to better use. Wondering what went so wrong? Let me explain.

Limited availability to start

Wait, wait, and more wait

Apple first showed off its version of AI back in June 2024 during WWDC. It set the tone for a grand launch three months later during the annual iPhone event. After all, the iPhone 16 series was marketed with a heavy emphasis on Apple Intelligence. However, consumers were disappointed to learn that Apple Intelligence wasn't available to use at the time of launch. Neither was it on the new iPhones nor was it available on the latest iteration of macOS at that time.

This was a bummer, since the interest in Apple intelligence started fizzling out to a large extent. Why announce something that's not yet available to use? Consumers had to wait too long to experience Apple Intelligence on their iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

Moreover, even after the feature was rolled out, it was limited to a select few abilities. The full suite of generative AI features is still in the works as per Apple, and will supposedly be launched in early 2025. At the time of writing, the Writing Tools feature is the only headlining feature of Apple Intelligence on both iOS and macOS.

Writing Tools add little value

Just ask ChatGPT instead

Alright, let's leave the logistics to the side for a bit and focus on what's available. Writing Tools, as the name suggests, includes features that use generative AI to read pieces of text and help you improve them. It can proofread a block of text to find errors, paraphrase it, make it sound more friendly or professional, and shorten it. Additionally, you can get a quick summary of an article or webpage or break it down to quickly view key points, format it as a list, or even convert numerical data into tables.

While all of this sounds good in theory, the tools are either seldom useful or they don't work as intended. For example, I've never felt the necessity to paraphrase my email or message to make it more friendly or professional. This could also be because I'm fluent in English. So, it might be useful if I'm learning a different language like German, right? Well, no. That's because Writing Tools, just like all other features of Apple Intelligence so far, is only available in the English language.

Furthermore, the Proofread option fails to work at times. Even when I've typed a sentence that doesn't sound right, Apple Intelligence fails to recognize and correct it. Take the text in the screenshot below, for example, where the verbiage is very wrong in the sentence. However, despite running it through the Proofread feature, Apple Intelligence recommends no changes.

When I ran the same text in ChatGPT with a prompt to proofread it, I got the expected response with suggestions to correct the sentence. It's surprising to me that Apple decided to ship a half-baked feature like this.

To Apple's credit, though, the Summarize and List tools work well. The ability to create a Table is slightly finicky. It works with certain data sets but throws an error the moment you introduce a lot of values.

New Siri is still... Siri

Miss you, Bixby

There was a fair bit of hype surrounding the new improvements to Siri during Apple's announcement. It was long overdue, to be honest, since Siri has been the least helpful voice assistant, even lagging behind Bixby, a voice assistant that was extremely redundant, since Google Assistant has always been solid.

While Siri now understands context in a better fashion, the responses are still terrible. It searches the web for the most basic queries, whereas Google Assistant or Gemini can provide immediate responses that are much more helpful. I asked Siri if I could make chocolate chip cookies without eggs. Instead of giving me a definitive answer, it gave me a list of search results. What is this, 2014?

All the other improvements to Siri that were announced are yet to roll out, so we'll have to keep waiting.

The other bits and pieces

Better notification management, finally?

Both iOS and macOS have been infamous for poor notification management. Apple aimed to fix that with the Summarize Previews feature, which uses AI to determine the contents of your notifications and give you a short summary. It essentially saves space on the lock screen or in the notification panel. While I like the idea, the implementation is done poorly.

There are several memes on the internet about how Apple Intelligence is summarizing notifications in a funny manner. In fact, I've had instances where AI has interpreted the contents of my notifications wrongly and shown me summaries that are completely opposite of what the message said. A friend of mine messaged on a group chat asking if a bunch of us were possibly interested in attending a concert, and that he would be booking tickets for it based on any interest in joining him.

I was in a meeting, so I couldn't respond immediately. Later, I just glanced at my phone to read the Apple Intelligence summary. It said "Tickets to concert booked, questions about mode of transport." I was surprised to see this and wondered who booked tickets for me without my consent. I then read the entire message in the group and realized the summary didn't match what was being said.

Below I've included another nonsense AI notification summary a friend shared with me.

Then, there's the Clean Up feature in the Photos app on both iOS and macOS. While it does a fairly good job with a plain background, it struggles when you throw something challenging at it. I defaulted to using the Magic Eraser on Google Photos since it's included with my Google One subscription. It works much better in my opinion.

Too soon to judge?

Too late to launch

Just like most things that are new, Apple Intelligence, too, has some teething issues. But, what annoys me the most is that after making us wait for this long, Apple should have ironed out these types of basic issues. There's no excuse for the Proofread tool not to work, when its only job is to proofread and fix your text.

Thanks to these jarring issues, I decided to disable Apple Intelligence on my Mac. I would rather allocate the extra RAM for other tasks instead of wasting resources on a feature that just doesn't work. On the other hand, Microsoft has done an excellent job of integrating Copilot into Windows. It's usable, reliable (on most occasions), and delivers what it promises.

We all knew Apple was late to the AI game, just the way it generally is with cutting-edge tech. However, when Apple adopts something, it perfects it. That's exactly what I expected with Apple Intelligence too. Alas, the real-world experience is far from that. Hopefully, things improve by early 2025 and we have a usable version of Siri. I'll also watch out for the other promised features of Apple Intelligence, like Image Playground, Visual Intelligence, Genmoji, ChatGPT integration, etc. I sincerely hope Apple steps on the pedal with them, since other brands are running away with AI integration on their devices like it's nobody's business.