This week, you can take a first bite of Apple Intelligence, which Apple says is a more useful, more thoughtful, more private, more made-for-iPhone version of artificial intelligence. After testing Apple Intelligence features on my iPhone for months, I’ve found that the AI still doesn’t do much — and sometimes doesn’t act intelligent at all. Using Apple’s AI also appears to drain my phone’s battery faster. To get Apple Intelligence on your iPhone 16 or 15 Pro, recent Mac or recent iPad, you’ll have to opt in — and possibly join a waiting list for a few hours. First you have to download a software update for iOS 18.1, then toggle a switch under Settings to request Apple Intelligence. One thing Apple Intelligence does that you can’t get from ChatGPT or Google Gemini is summarizing all your iPhone lock-screen notifications. That’s mildly useful except when it goes bananas at least once or twice per day. One example: Last Thursday, Apple AI summarized a news headline as, “Steve Anderson urges Harris to endorse Harris.” (The actual original headline was, “Fellow General Steve Anderson Tells John Kelly Why He Must Endorse Harris Now.”) Apple didn’t answer my questions about why the battery on my year-old iPhone 15 Pro lasts only until about 3 p.m. now that I’m using Apple Intelligence. (Many factors can influence battery life, but this seems like more than just a coincidence.) Apple smartly understands it has a monopoly over much of the data and screen real estate on your iPhone and can use AI to summarize, organize and edit it for you. And I like the more cautious approach Apple Intelligence takes with privacy, running functions locally on your device or on a special cloud service so your personal data isn’t accessible to anyone else. (That’s a big improvement over Meta, Microsoft and Google.)

Full opinion : Apple’s new AI summarizes things on your iPhone and its not that good plus its sucks battery.