Apple Intelligence promised big things, but after exploring its features, I’m left disappointed. From lackluster image editing tools to limited device compatibility, Apple still has a lot of catching up to do.
1There Are Barely Any Image Editing Tools
I was excited to see what Apple had in store with Apple Intelligence for image manipulation, especially after Google’s impressive offerings. Unfortunately, I was thoroughly disappointed. The sole feature, Clean Up, works like Google’s Magic Eraser, letting youremove objects or people from photos.
While it’s impressive that it runs on-device and works amazingly for simple edits, the results fall short compared to Google’s tools. What’s more frustrating, though, is the lack of additional photo editing features.
In contrast, theGoogle Pixel 9 has tons of AI featureslike Add Me, which ensures everyone is included in group shots, and Reimagine, allowing you to replace parts of an image with just a text description. Apple could definitely take notes from Google here. Features like these make me feel that Google is the one driving true innovation, while Apple seems to be merely trying to catch up.
2Notification Summaries Can Be Very Hit-or-Miss
One Apple Intelligence feature I was particularly excited about was notification summaries, which use an inbuilt LLM to provide a concise summary of all the notifications from an app.
It’s especially handy for managing overwhelming group chat messages or a flood of notifications. While the concept sounded fantastic during Apple’s announcement, the actual implementation has been subpar at best.
My personal experience hasn’t been much different from the X post above. I’ve had summaries, especially from messaging apps, that make no sense. Sometimes it just spits out something really shocking, only for me to realize that it didn’t interpret the messages correctly.
This has led to me to stop relying on these summaries altogether because it just isn’t very reliable.
3Device Compatibility Is Extremely Limited
Another major disappointment with Apple Intelligence is its limited device availability. While I understand that features like Clean Up or Writing Tools need more RAM and processing power, it makes no sense why features that rely on the cloud aren’t available on older devices.
A prime example is ChatGPT integration, where Siri can tap into ChatGPT for requests that it can’t handle directly. The same issue applies to Visual Intelligence, which involves no on-device processing. It’s frustrating because you canuse third-party apps to access the same features on unsupported devicesand get nearly identical results.
This isn’t the only puzzling aspect—it feels like a huge missed opportunity that Apple’s home devices, like HomePods and Apple TVs, are entirely excluded from any Apple Intelligence features. These devices are arguably some of the most ideal in Apple’s lineup for integrating such capabilities.
4Image Playground Feels Like A Gimmick
In my opinion, one of the worst offenders among Apple Intelligence features is Image Playground. This app generates AI images based on text descriptions or pre-existing photos—but I can’t figure out when anyone would actually use it.
The art styles feel overly cartoonish for my liking, and I can’t imagine using Image Playground to create images worth sharing with friends or family. It just comes across as a gimmick. Among mydream Apple Intelligence features, a more realistic image generation model would definitely be at the top.
One good thing that did come out of this, though, is Genmojis, which are basically custom emojis that you can generate based on a text prompt. I feel like this is an area where Apple has actually done a good job.
5All the Features Aren’t Even Out Yet
Apple Intelligence also appears to be moving at an uncharacteristically slow pace, with some features, including the highly anticipated context-aware Siri, possibly delayed until April 2025—despite being announced as a major feature in June 2024.
Priority notifications are also entirely missing, with no release date in sight, making it hard to recommend Apple Intelligence to anyone, as it offers so little and is incomplete at the same time.
While Apple has made progress, particularly with on-device privacy-focused processing, it’s clear they’re being held back and still have a long way to go to rival Google’s AI suite.
