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