I just tested the new Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.2 - and I'm surprisingly disappointed

When talking about Apple Intelligence, it’s important to remember that Apple’s efforts to bring more artificial intelligence to its mobile device are still a work in progress. Where we are today is not where we will be in a year or even a few months, given the speed at which Apple is rolling out updates to iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. What’s important is that Apple appears to have a very clear vision of what purpose AI serves on its devices, and that the company is building the tools to realize that vision.

And I’m glad Apple sees things like the just-released iOS 18.2 update as just another step in the process, with tools that will improve over time. Because I think iOS 18.2 is a bit fiddly, with some standout features that really don’t do much.

That probably says less about Apple’s efforts and more about what I use my phone for and how I think AI will help with that. It’s not that iOS 18.2’s additions are poorly implemented or misguided – they just don’t provide the features I want.

Image Playground: What is it good for?

Animated vs. illustrated images created in Image Playground

(Image credit: Future)

At best, Apple Intelligence features save me either time or hassle. For example, with October’s iOS 18.1 update, I liked the summary tools introduced in Mail, particularly the feature that generates summaries across long email exchanges and gives me just a simple paragraph with the main points. This is a real time saver for me, as is the summary text that now appears alongside the messages in my inbox. (My only gripe is that I wish Mail would show the entire summary instead of cutting it off after a few lines.)

Thanks to iOS 18.1, there are a number of such features. The Phone app offers a similar time-saving summary feature for the phone call logs it can create from the recordings it now supports. Memory Movie is hardly a significant addition to the iPhone, but it takes a task that would take me hours to do in iMovie – putting together a slideshow of images and videos in my Photos library based on my instructions – and does it in less than a finished product comes out in a minute. These aren’t parlor tricks – they’re useful tools.

I’m not sure I can say the same about Image Playground, which can generate an image based on the prompts you provide – mostly text, but you can also use a photo from your library to unleash Image Playground’s creativity to let it run. It’s a good concept, but in practice Image Playground leaves a lot to be desired.

It’s not that Image Playground’s output is bad, just limited. The app is best if you limit the output to portraits, but you only have two options – animations, which make everyone look like extras in a Pixar film, and illustrations, which feel more like a comic book. Without additional styles, Image Playground’s output always looks the same, and the novelty wears off quickly.

It also doesn’t help that you can’t do much with Image Playground when generating something. Oh, you can text one of your portraits to a friend in Messages or send the image to a relevant note, but you can’t really resize things beyond the square layout that all Image Playground editions are limited to . There’s not even support for the Visual Look Up feature, which lets you hold down on an image to lift it from the background.

If good Apple Intelligence features save me time, Image Playground does the exact opposite. At this point it’s wasting my time.

Functions with a certain appeal – but not for everyone

Example of two Genmoji created in iOS 18.2

(Image credit: Future)

Other Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.2 fall flat for me for personal reasons. I rarely use emojis in any kind of communication – I really can’t stand them – so a tool like Genmoji that generates custom emojis from text prompts isn’t interesting to me.

Worse still, I imagine the texts, emails, and notes I get from people who use Emjoi will be even harder to decipher when I have to unpack the custom symbols they created in Genmoji . Standard emojis are so small that I find them difficult enough to interpret – Should this be a taco or a gyro? Should this hand gesture be friendly or dismissive? Did someone just insult me with a pictogram? – I see Genmoji adding a new level of frustration to my life.

Many of my colleagues are excited about ChatGPT’s integration with Siri because they believe it will fill many gaps in Siri’s knowledge base. Maybe so, but I have strong reservations about OpenAI, the company that makes ChatGPT, and that’s why I’m very reluctant to allow them on my iPhone. Luckily, ChatGPT is an opt-in feature and this toggle will remain disabled for as long as possible.

I think that if I had regular access to an iPhone 16, I might judge the value of Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.2 differently. At some point that might be the case, but so far I’ve done all of my Apple Intelligence testing on an iPhone 15 Pro. This means I can’t use Visual Intelligence, a Google Lens-like feature that only works on the latest iPhones. This is a shame, as my colleagues who have tested the feature believe that Visual Intelligence is a real game-changer and adds significant value to Apple Intelligence.

My colleague Richard Priday used his iPhone 16’s camera and Visual Intelligence feature to translate signs on the go. He also used it at an art gallery to search for information about paintings and artists, essentially turning his phone into a pocket guide. Amanda Caswell, another Tom’s Guide author, has come up with the best solution of all: she uses visual intelligence to count calories. I’ve previously argued that Apple Intelligence’s features, while promising, aren’t powerful enough to justify upgrading your iPhone alone, but Visual Intelligence seems to be the first capability that’s making me reconsider that stance.

Things can only get better

Describe your change function in the writing tools

(Image credit: Future)

Again, I don’t want to give the impression that an Apple Intelligence feature that I may not care about now will stay that way forever. Things can evolve, especially in the area of AI, where models can become smarter and features can be refined. Writing Tools is a good example of this.

When iOS 18.1 came out, I was very skeptical about the writing tools, which in my opinion don’t do much to improve writing. Some features might come in handy – if you’re not used to writing a formal letter, the button to make your text sound more formal can be very effective for maintaining a very strict style. But in most cases, the writing tools seem to strip all of the individual voice from your text, making it sound like a computer is doing the writing for you. Not a great impression.

iOS 18.2 takes a step to correct this with an addition to writing tools. The “Describe Your Change” feature allows you to give specific instructions about what you want in a paraphrase – “Make this more enthusiastic,” just as an example. I’ll have to take a closer look at Describe Your Change to see how effective it is – I suspect the biggest additions will be adjectives and word choice – but it at least promises greater flexibility than the preset options initially included in Writing Tools were included. This is a step in the right direction.

And honestly, not every Apple Intelligence feature has to be a hit for Apple’s work with AI to pay off. Remember how I mentioned at the beginning of this article how much I liked the changes to Mail? It would be more accurate to say that I enjoy it the most of changes like the summary tools mentioned above. Mail also added a redesign that created different inboxes for different email types. I liked the effect so much that I immediately used the built-in feature to return to a single inbox view in Mail.

My point here is that Apple Intelligence is a grab bag. Some of the features you will like, others not so much. For me, much of iOS 18.2 falls under the heading of “Not So Much.” However, that doesn’t mean iOS 18.3 or the updates beyond it will end the same way.

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