Hands-on With the First 10 Apple Intelligence Features
Mar 11, 2025
Article on Cult of Mac: https://www.cultofmac.com/how-to/apple-intelligence-features More Apple news: http://www.cultofmac.com Produced by Extra Ordinary for Cult of Mac Music composed by Will Davenport, arranged by D. Griffin Jones Chapters: 0:00 Intro 0:18 Writing Tools 2:10 Notification Summaries 2:59 Image Clean Up 4:01 Photo Search 4:20 Memory Movies 4:54 Messages Replies 5:22 Transcriptions 6:19 Reduce Interruptions 7:45 Siri Product Knowledge 8:49 Type-to-Siri Follow us!
View Video Transcript
0:00
Apple intelligence makes its debut in
0:02
iOS
0:02
18.1 with 10 new features some of them
0:06
are genuinely impressive some of them
0:08
are smaller features that'll still have
0:09
a big impact on your daily life While
0:12
others are kind of pointless let's take
0:15
a
0:17
look let's start with the writing tools
0:19
this is a set of features that can proof
0:21
read change the tone of or reformat text
0:24
these features are available in any app
0:26
that uses a standard text field all of
0:29
Apple's apps like Notes mail and Safari
0:32
and most third party apps tap the cursor
0:34
to bring up the popup menu and select
0:36
writing tools you may have to swipe over
0:39
to find it there also might be an apple
0:41
intelligence button in the toolbar that
0:43
brings it up as well tap to highlight a
0:45
specific portion of text to apply it to
0:48
or don't select anything and it'll apply
0:50
to the entire document proof free looks
0:52
for mistakes poor punctuation and
0:54
clumsily phrased sentences it's a good
0:56
tool to use as a final check before you
0:58
send something important rewrite takes
1:00
the same information and slightly
1:02
rephrases it if you don't like the way a
1:04
sentence sounds but can't get your head
1:06
out of a rut to rewrite it yourself this
1:08
is a good tool to use friendly and
1:10
professional rewrite the tone of a
1:12
sentence to be either more casual or
1:14
more diplomatic concise removes all of
1:16
the extraneous unnecessary Superfluous
1:20
words in a sentence to make it shorter
1:23
less long and have fewer words in it as
1:25
well summary and key points reduce the
1:28
information down to just a single
1:29
sentence sentence or a few bullet points
1:32
these don't automatically replace the
1:34
original text so you can use it to
1:36
generate a thesis statement out of a
1:37
paper for example you can copy the
1:40
results to paste it somewhere else or
1:42
replace the original selection list and
1:44
table transform the formatting of the
1:46
selection into a list of bullet points
1:48
or reorganize the information into a
1:51
multicolumn table the proof reading
1:53
rewriting and summary tools do a pretty
1:55
decent job but I've been most impressed
1:57
by its ability to convert ordinary
2:00
writing into a small multicolumn table
2:03
no matter your writing skills changing
2:05
the structure and formatting of a
2:06
document is a universal pain in the ass
2:10
the summary feature is available in
2:11
other parts of the system as well if you
2:13
get a whole Rush of notifications in a
2:15
row instead of seeing a big long list of
2:17
messages you'll see a single sentence
2:20
summary describing the whole lot of
2:22
notifications and you can still tap to
2:24
expand the list to see the original
2:25
messages if you want as well these have
2:28
about a 90% % hit rate usually it can
2:31
accurately summarize a conversation but
2:34
sometimes it's missing that one key
2:36
piece of information and comes up with
2:39
total nonsense where it really shines is
2:41
in mail where emails with a onetime
2:43
six-digit code always put the number
2:46
inside the notification Banner
2:48
promotional emails no longer read hello
2:50
Griffin did you know that today we have
2:52
a special offer for do dot dot and
2:54
instead just say buy one pizza get one
2:57
free on BOGO Tuesday image cleanup this
3:00
is a tool that will let you
3:01
intelligently erase objects from a
3:03
picture open a picture tap edit and tap
3:07
the new cleanup tool on the bottom just
3:09
drag your finger to select or Circle an
3:12
object it'll work for a moment and then
3:14
it'll intelligently fill it in this
3:16
works best if the thing you're erasing
3:18
doesn't overlap anything else in the
3:20
image and is surrounded by a pattern it
3:22
can easily replicate like dust on a
3:24
black shirt an object sitting on a table
3:27
a calendar hanging on a wall stuff like
3:30
that but it'll try to fill in whatever
3:32
you ask it to it just might not do a
3:35
very good job a car on a busy crowded
3:38
City street or the main Central subject
3:41
of a photo it'll do it it'll just look
3:44
kind of weird the one thing it won't do
3:46
is replace someone's face if you Circle
3:48
the face it'll instantly pixelate the
3:50
results but honestly this could be
3:52
considered a feature if you want to post
3:54
a picture on social media but one person
3:56
in the picture wants to remain anonymous
3:58
well you can use cleanup to disguise
4:00
their identity also in the photos app
4:01
you can use apple intelligence to be
4:03
more descriptive when you're searching
4:05
for photos Griffin wearing a hat videos
4:08
of Lewis playing the accordion wearing a
4:10
green shirt no more madly swiping
4:12
through your entire photo library just
4:14
to find that one image this is one of
4:16
those smaller features that you'll
4:17
appreciate a little more every time it
4:19
works you can automatically generate a
4:21
memory movie from your photos using a
4:23
natural language text prompt scroll down
4:26
to the memory section and tap describe a
4:28
memory and type in what you want or tap
4:30
the create button to the right you can
4:32
tie together names of people in your
4:34
pictures locations events periods of
4:37
time and more you can even specify a
4:39
genre of music to go along with it I
4:41
tested the limits first I typed in
4:44
beautiful plants flowers and trees with
4:47
death metal music and it gave me the
4:49
best video I've ever
4:53
seen moving right along when you get a
4:55
text in messages you'll see apple
4:57
intelligence suggest or reply in the
4:59
quick type bar above the keyboard and
5:02
you can tell they're AI generated
5:04
because they flash purple orange yellow
5:06
and blue just tap one of these
5:08
suggestions to fill it in the text field
5:11
it doesn't automatically send the text I
5:14
don't find these suggestions
5:16
particularly useful I think they sound
5:18
kind of soulless and robotic in my
5:20
opinion phone calls and notes now have
5:23
built in recording and transcriptions
5:26
from a phone call or FaceTime audio call
5:28
tap the record button in the upper left
5:31
both people on the call will hear this
5:33
call will be recorded with a brief
5:35
countdown a new note is created for
5:38
every recorded phone call and you can
5:39
find them in the notes app in the call
5:41
recordings folder from a pop-up menu you
5:44
can tap take notes on this call to
5:46
switch to the notes app you can also add
5:48
a voice recording to a note directly
5:50
from the attachments button tap record
5:53
audio you'll see a pop-up interface that
5:55
looks very familiar if you've ever used
5:57
the voice memos app tap the show
5:59
transcript and summary button in the
6:01
bottom left and you'll see a live
6:03
transcription as soon as you start
6:05
recording the transcriptions are pretty
6:07
fast though not terribly accurate even
6:10
smaller whisper models work just as fast
6:12
and have much better results especially
6:15
around punctuation and capitalizing
6:17
proper nouns next up is the reduce
6:19
interruptions Focus mode setting up a
6:22
focus mode by hand is kind of a pain you
6:25
need to know exactly which contacts and
6:27
apps you want to allow or let through
6:29
and you constantly need to maintain it
6:31
as you add new contacts and download new
6:34
apps reduce interruptions adds Apple
6:37
intelligence to make it easier reduce
6:39
interruptions judges on the Fly which
6:42
notifications are important enough to
6:44
bother you so I turned it on and sure
6:46
enough I immediately stopped getting
6:48
notifications from a particularly active
6:51
Snapchat group and a few text messages I
6:53
agree aren't very important I tried
6:56
testing it with slack so I had my
6:57
colleague Ed Ping me without writing a
7:00
message that was silenced but it did
7:02
notify me when I asked him to write
7:04
something that sounded urgent although
7:06
an email from Meer notifying me that my
7:09
grocery order was ready for pickup was
7:11
also silenced and I would have liked to
7:13
know about that now you can still apply
7:15
a fixed set of rules to override the AI
7:18
if you want in settings Focus reduce
7:22
interruptions just like any other Focus
7:24
you can have a specific set of contacts
7:26
and apps that are whitelisted you can
7:28
choose to hide back badges you can set a
7:30
schedule and you can tie it to a home
7:32
screen lock screen and watch face you
7:35
can also turn on intelligent
7:36
breakthrough and silencing on any of
7:38
your existing Focus modes too it'll
7:41
apply the AI powered model on top of
7:43
your existing rules Siri now has
7:46
extensive knowledge about Apple products
7:48
it's been trained on Apple support
7:50
documentation so you can ask it a
7:51
question about your phone and it'll
7:54
answer it for you so I asked it how do I
7:56
share a Wi-Fi password and it instantly
7:59
gave me very clear stepbystep
8:02
directions but then I asked it how do I
8:04
customize Control Center and it gave me
8:07
instructions for iOS 17 rather than iOS
8:11
18 and then I asked it how do I
8:13
customize the camera control and it gave
8:16
me Google search results it seems like
8:18
this feature hasn't been updated yet
8:20
with the iOS 18 edition of the iPhone
8:22
user guide and it does make sense when
8:24
you think about it although Apple can
8:26
publish this stuff to the web the same
8:28
day that software updates are out and
8:30
new iPhones are released it takes time
8:33
to train and test a new AI model from
8:36
scratch which they will have to do to
8:38
update siries product knowledge every
8:40
time a new feature is out so for the
8:43
time being at least the best how-tos and
8:45
guides are still on cul of.com you can
8:49
now double tap the bottom of the screen
8:51
to type to Siri this has been available
8:53
as an accessibility setting before but
8:55
it was an All or Nothing change now it's
8:58
simple you can double tap to type or you
9:01
can hold the side button or
9:03
say to talk now you may be wondering if
9:06
you don't want to talk out loud but you
9:08
can use the keyboard why wouldn't you
9:11
just use Google or Spotlight well Siri
9:14
actually does have a few specific
9:16
domains of knowledge that it's very good
9:18
at sports trivia movie and TV show
9:21
trivia Apple product knowledge as I just
9:24
showed you rolling Dice and flipping
9:26
coins searching through your passwords
9:28
in the password app if you don't want to
9:31
announce your Siri queries to the whole
9:33
world or at least the room you're in
9:36
this is a more discret way to use your
9:38
phone's assistant although double
9:39
tapping the home bar for type to Siri
9:41
isn't really an apple intelligence
9:43
feature and could easily be enabled on
9:46
all other devices apple is tying this
9:49
new gesture to the new Siri design and
9:52
the new Siri itself although these new
9:55
Siri features are pretty neat this is
9:57
only an appetizer the total Siri
10:00
overhaul is coming next spring likely
10:03
with iOS 18.4 that version of Siri will
10:06
be able to take complicated instructions
10:09
questions see your screen and do things
10:12
for you inside apps I think it's
10:14
misleading that Apple rolled out the new
10:16
visual look for Siri before the real new
10:19
Siri actually ships because ordinary
10:22
people will try it out see the new
10:24
design realize it isn't actually that
10:27
much better and write it off before they
10:30
actually try the impressive new features
10:33
so that is the first batch of apple
10:34
intelligence features coming in iOS 18.1
10:37
in October there is much more exciting
10:39
stuff coming down the pipeline so
10:41
remember to like And subscribe I'm
10:43
driffin Jones with Cult of Mac
#Intelligent Personal Assistants
#Software


