Apple’s Updates Offer Enhanced Apple Intelligence Features
Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence in October 2024 and expanded its extensive collection of AI-powered features with its December updates. The company’s January 2025 releases of macOS 15.3 Sequoia, iOS 18.3, and iPadOS 18.3 enhanced the feature set in several notable ways. Remember, Apple Intelligence features operate only on a Mac with Apple silicon, an iPhone 15 Pro or any iPhone 16, or an iPad with an A17 Pro or M-series chip.
Although Apple still considers Apple Intelligence to be in beta, the January operating system releases enabled it by default. From Apple’s perspective, this makes sense because so many features depend on Apple Intelligence, and the company aims to ensure a consistent user experience for everyone. Those features include:
- Photos: Clean Up, natural language searching, and improved Memory movie creation
- Text and Writing: Writing Tools with ChatGPT integration for any app
- Communication: Priority messages in Mail, Smart Reply and summaries in both Mail and Messages
- Notes and Phone: Audio transcription summaries
- Creative Tools: Genmoji and Image Playground for image generation, Image Wand for Apple Pencil sketches
- Focus: Intelligent Breakthrough & Silencing and Reduce Interruptions Focus
- Notifications: Summaries for busy apps and conversations
- Siri: Enhanced capabilities, but primarily ChatGPT integration
- Camera: Visual Intelligence lookups (iPhone 16 only)
Apple Intelligence requires up to 7 GB of storage space (we see it occupying 5 GB in macOS 15.3 and 5.75 GB in iOS 18.3), so if your Mac, iPhone, or iPad is low on space, you may want to turn it off to free up room for photos, movies, and apps. Do that in the Apple Intelligence & Siri section of System Settings or Settings. However, you might not notice recovered space until your device decides to reclaim it. To check your space usage on a Mac, navigate to System Settings > General > Storage > macOS, and on an iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > General > iPhone/iPad Storage > iOS/iPadOS.
Assuming you intend to keep it enabled, what can you expect from this third update to Apple Intelligence features?
Changes to Notification Summaries
Notification summaries have proven to be Apple Intelligence’s most controversial feature. They have generated blatantly incorrect news summaries and misidentified spouses, resulting in complaints from major publications and widespread mockery. In response, Apple has temporarily turned off notification summaries for all apps in the App Store’s News & Entertainment category.
Apple also italicized all the text in notification summaries to better distinguish them from standard notifications. Previously, the only indicator of a summarized notification was a tiny icon.
Finally, Apple made it easier to manage settings for notification summaries from the Lock Screen. On an iPhone, for instance, you can swipe right to reveal an Options button, tap it, and then tap Turn Off AppName Summaries. You can also report a concern with a summary—Apple solicits feedback as part of the Apple Intelligence beta.
Visual Intelligence Adds Scheduling and Plant and Animal Identification
Apple Intelligence enhances the new Camera Control button on iPhone 16 models, enabling it to respond based on what’s in the viewfinder. Initially, it could only ask ChatGPT about what it saw or conduct a Google image search. Now, when you press and hold the Camera Control, Visual Intelligence can also detect whether you’re pointing at a poster or flyer and suggest creating a calendar event. Additionally, if it identifies a plant or animal within the frame, it will recognize it and provide more information with a tap.
Genmoji Become Available on the Mac
iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2 introduced the custom emoji Apple calls Genmoji, but macOS 15.2 did not include this feature. With macOS 15.3, the Mac has now caught up. The functionality remains the same—you describe what you want to see in a few words, and the Genmoji can be based on a picture of a person. The Genmoji you create are essentially stickers, but you can use them just like regular emojis.
To create one, open the emoji picker, type a few words of description, and click Create New Emoji. You can then experiment with different descriptions and scroll through Apple Intelligence’s variants before clicking Add to save your Genmoji and insert it wherever you’re typing.
We expect at least one more major release related to Apple Intelligence, likely in early March, coinciding with the .4 operating system updates. If Apple’s engineers meet their targets, these releases will enable Siri to access and leverage your personal information for more context-aware responses. Siri will also be able to perform actions within apps. Additionally, Apple has promised priority notifications to ensure that we are quickly alerted to the most critical messages while minimizing distractions from less important ones.
In the meantime, explore the Apple Intelligence features currently available and see if they enhance your Apple experience.
(Featured image by Apple)
