Apple Intelligence isn’t a thing, it’s several things that are being released piecemeal over the course of several iOS/iPadOS/macOS updates. It started with iOS 18.1, but aside from some neat writing tools, the really good stuff didn’t arrive until now. With iOS 18.2, your iPhone has quite a few new useful features and improvements powered by Apple Intelligence, and gives you a much better idea of where Apple is going with its AI vision. The features introduced in iOS 18.1 were just the start; these are all the big ways Apple Intelligence levels up in iOS 18.2 and macOS 15.2.
Image playground is Apple’s DALL·E
With the iOS/iPadOS 18.2 and macOS 15.2 updates, you’ll find a new app installed on your devices: Image Playground. Like DALL·E and other AI image generators, it allows you to make AI-made images by typing a description or using a variety of selected settings, objects, and modifiers. You can opt to draw in either animation or illustration styles, but it’s very limited in both scope and quality, probably to avoid any potential for trying to trick anyone. But you can select people from your Photos library to use a subject, which is kind of fun.
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You can use the Image Playground engine in the Notes app with a new Image Wand too. It can make a new image from a description or surrounding text, or take a rough sketch and flesh it out. Anywhere you can draw an image in Notes, just select the new “Magic Wand” tool at the right and circle the blank area or rough sketch you wish to replace with an AI-generated one.
It’s based on the same image generation tools as Image Playground, so it has the same strict limitations and middling quality. But unless you’re an artist, it’s probably going to look nicer than the rough sketch you made with your finger or Apple Pencil.
Genmoji is built into the keyboard
The next image generation tool built into the latest version of iOS and macOS is called Genmoji, and it will make a new custom image in the style of Apple’s emoji. Just open any app that accepts emoji input, select the emoji picker in the keyboard (or your Mac’s menu), and tap/click the smiling face icon to the right of the emoji search box.
Then you can describe the emoji you wish to see and Apple’s image-generation AI will give you several options.
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Writing Tools will do what you say
The Writing Tools prompt in iOS 18.1 will let you change your selected text to automatically make it more professional, friendly, or concise. Those options are still there, but the Writing Tools interface now includes a text input line where can describe any sort of change you want. Tell Writing Tools to make it into a poem, make it scary, or whatever else you like (within reason of course).
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ChatGPT can write anything
Also new in the Writing Tools box is a “Compose” button, which lets you type a prompt to compose whatever text you want with ChatGPT. You can include any sort of prompt you would on the ChatGPT site to generate new text.
When it’s done, you can use ChatGPT to refine it, with another prompt or by selecting one of ChatGPT’s suggestions.
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Visual Intelligence sees the world (if you have an iPhone 16)
One of the core functions of the Camera Control button finally comes to iPhone 16 in iOS 18.2. Visual Intelligence can use Siri and ChatGPT to tell you all sorts of things about what you point your camera at.
Press and hold the camera button for a second or two to launch Visual Intelligence. Frame what you want information about and press the shutter button (the Camera Control button or the on-screen shutter button). The information you get depends on your subject and takes into account details like your location. If you point it at a restaurant, for example, you might get its Yelp rating, hours of operation, some photos of it, and even the option to make a reservation or order from the menu.
For random objects, you’ll usually see two buttons at the bottom of the screen: Ask and Search. Search performs a Google Image Search for similar images. Ask will ask ChatGPT about your image (after prompting you for permission first). A ChatGPT prompt at the bottom of the screen will let you ask specific follow-up questions like “how much does this cost” or “how many calories are in this?”
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ChatGPT makes Siri much smarter
ChatGPT integration into Siri really makes it a lot more useful. Siri is good at knowing what’s on your calendar or in your text messages and can give you some general information from the internet, but it’s quite limited. ChatGPT knows nothing about what’s on your iPhone, but it knows a basically everything about the world at large (except for recent events).
You can ask Siri a question, and if it doesn’t know the answer, it will prompt you to use ChatGPT instead. You can even browse your Photos library and ask all sorts of things about one of your photos or ask about what’s on your screen (websites and such). You’ll always be prompted to send your photo or a screenshot to ChatGPT to get the answer.
If you don’t want the prompts before every time Siri asks ChatGPT, open Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri > ChatGPT and disable the “Confirm ChatGPT Requests” option. You’ll still be prompted before sending images or screenshots, though. If you’re a ChatGPT subscriber you can log in here to get the full benefits of your account. If not, you can still use ChatGPT, even without an account, you’ll just be limited as to how many advanced requests you can make in a 24-hour period.
You can even tell Siri to have ChatGPT generate images, which will use OpenAI’s advanced DALL·E 3 engine.
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