How Does This Apple Intelligence Work? - DTNS 4917  ## Metadata - Author: [[Daily Tech News Show]] - Full Title: How Does This Apple Intelligence Work? - DTNS 4917 - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/3ca91ebc-1354-4843-b4d7-9fd20e47ccb9 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Apple Intelligence Overview** - Apple Intelligence integrates AI features across Apple devices, not as a standalone app. - It prioritizes on-device processing and private cloud compute for privacy. Transcript: Sarah Lane It's been more than a month now since Apple Intelligence was released with iOS 18.1. A survey by tech trade insight CellCell, that's S-E cell phone, found that 73% of Apple Intelligence users and 87% of Galaxy AI users said that new AI features were not that valuable Or added little to no value. Emily, you've spent some time with Apple Intelligence, as have Tom and I as well. Maybe you can help us understand a little bit more about what is going on here. Apple Intelligence, what is good, what is not? Emily Forlini Yeah, absolutely. So as you guys know, Apple Intelligence is Apple's big answer to this whole AI of the past two years, like going back to ChatGPT. This is kind of their big go-forward strategy. And it's confusing because it's not a single AI model. It's not like GPT-4. It's not a single feature. It's not even a single app on your phone. It's just this distribution of features across the whole device, you know, their iPads, Macs, iPhones, and they're baking it kind of into the OS. So for example, the new Siri, or the first iteration of Siri that they launched, I'll get into that later, you can now access it by double tapping at the bottom of the device, and it pulls Up a kind of glowy interface where you can type to Siri. So it's just their little features in every nook and cranny. And they have a big privacy promise on them that they're not going to store your data. They're going to try to do it on device. And if a request needs to go off device, it will go to a new kind of what they're calling private cloud compute, which are more private servers. So that's what it is. So, ([Time 0:24:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4c9529da-f03e-4d16-b77a-22f3fab1f21e)) - **Inaccurate Summaries** - Emily Forlini finds Apple Intelligence's email and text summaries distracting and inaccurate. - The BBC criticized Apple Intelligence for incorrectly summarizing one of their articles. Transcript: Sarah Lane All right. That's great for folks who use Siri often. I almost never do unless I'm in my car, but at that point I use it all the time. But we've had two releases. So back in October, and we knew that these releases would be staggered, right? October's iOS 18.1, and then last week's iOS 18.2, it offered some more features. We've got stuff like, you know, the Playground. We have Genmoji. How much have you played around with that stuff and what sticks out to you as helpful? Emily Forlini Yeah, I've played around with all of it since the first, the October release. And then last week's release, I went in to the Apple store in New York last week for a briefing from Apple where they explained all the features. I did the same thing for the first tranche that they dropped. I've been playing with them on my iPhone 15 Pro. So that's kind of the oldest device that we'll work on. So you have to be iPhone 15 Pro through the iPhone 16 series. And I was really happy when you found this article, Tom, because it just kind of sums up my feeling about it, is it's just so lukewarm. And in fact, I'm getting really irritated at the the summaries for the emails and texts oh my gosh i hate them i hate they're really distracting and they're inaccurate like did you see That the bbc got mad because app iphone or uh i'm like all these terms apple intelligence uh summed up their article incorrectly and said that luigi guy shot And BBC was like, we didn't Write that in an article. Like, don't send a push notification to everyone on your device that we did. Sarah Lane Yeah, I was talking about this to Eileen Rivera on Apple Vision Show recently where I was like, I had gotten a summary from Facebook Messenger from a friend and it was Thanksgiving related. But the summary sounded like something terrible had happened at Thanksgiving. So I log in, I look at the message, I'm like, gosh, that's not what he said at all. Yeah. Emily Forlini And that's the feature you see the most. Like every time I look at my phone, I have a notification and it's some crazy summary from Apple. And it's like can you i actually would prefer just to see the first line of the text at this point and i don't like your summary i think it's it's like more mental work they're trying to make It less but the first step i'm now adjusting to whatever this crazy summary is second step i'm reading the text so my brain feels like it's doing more work there are other features but That's the one that's most prominent to me. Tom Merritt I ended up turning off the summaries for notifications in a lot of cases because I just didn't want to run into that. But I haven't turned them off for mail. And those are really distracting because I feel like I trained my brain to know what the first line of an email is going to indicate about the rest of it. And now I'm getting these like half sentences because there's not a lot of room to really summarize. And so I feel like I know less about what's in an email now because of that. Emily Forlini Yeah. ([Time 0:25:53](https://share.snipd.com/snip/152b523f-0703-48d4-8d73-77676a7d93db)) - **Bad Response Suggestions** - Sarah Lane finds Apple Intelligence's message response suggestions unhelpful and contextually inappropriate. - She cites an example where the suggested responses to "I just spent 45 minutes on the treadmill" were "Wow, sounds tough" and "Oh no." Transcript: Sarah Lane If I said to Emily, like, hey, you know what? You know, let's let's meet up on Saturday, but I've got limited time. You know, it's like, you might get a, I don't know, some summary that's like, Sarah, you know, is something terrible has happened on Saturday. She can't come. Like, it's like, what? No, that's not what I said. There's, there's a lot more context here. Right. Emily Forlini And there's a couple of technical issues I've noticed too. Like, for example, some of the summaries seem to incorporate the head or the subject of the email. So if I have a subject, let's say I'm going to be on this podcast at this time, that's like all in the subject line. The summary will summarize the subject line where maybe all that was written in the email was sounds good. It's like they're taking in the wrong information or somebody sent me a screenshot today and it didn't say like they sent you a screenshot of you know youtube it said they it summarized What was in the screenshot in a crazy way it's just like that's that's not what the it's not what this communication is about like your summary is wrong yeah yeah i've i've definitely Tom Merritt Uh i find it the most annoying when there's a long email chain and it summarizes the entire email chain. And I'm like, yeah, I know I read all those. I don't need that part summarized. Emily Forlini Or Apple. It's just not working. It's almost, with these summaries, I'm like, I wonder if they should roll it back, to be honest. Tom Merritt I wonder how much it matters to people, though. Sarah Lane It's pissing me off. Tom Merritt Yeah, right. No, I got you. Sarah Lane I mean, you can just turn off the feature. One of the other features that I find, you know, since we're going to nickel and dime Apple a little bit here, is the new message suggestions of what I should respond to if you say something To me. The other day, somebody said, I just spent 45 minutes on the treadmill. You know, the, the, this is somebody I know. And I was like, Oh, cool. The suggestions were like, wow, sounds tough. Or, Oh no. You know, I just, you know, exit out. I'm not going to say those things. I'm just like, you're just, you're pulling from data that you have no idea what we're talking about right now. Like, these are bad ideas for responses. I mean, Gmail does that quite a bit better, even though I don't really use those either. ([Time 0:29:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0d221cfb-0806-4db0-9525-82c36fdb651e)) - **Siri Usage and Revamp Delay** - Siri is the least used Apple intelligence feature, despite Apple's efforts to compete in the voice assistant market. - Apple delayed the major Siri revamp to 2026. Transcript: Emily Forlini I don't know what you guys are using. I mean, the Siri, in that article, they said it's actually the least used of the Apple intelligence features, which is such a bummer for Apple because they're trying so hard to compete With this voice assistant that just people will not use. And they also pushed out the big revamp of Siri now until 2026. So they're kind of, they're flipping and flopping, hemming and hawing on this AI thing and just hoping something sticks. ([Time 0:31:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/946b226c-acbe-42f6-8403-64c42e8baab2)) - **Positive Design** - Emily Forlini praises Apple Intelligence's visual design, particularly the "glow." - She finds the aesthetic appealing and hopes the technology will eventually match it. Transcript: Tom Merritt If we were to finish on a positive note, though, do you have a favorite feature of Apple intelligence? Emily Forlini I really like the glow. I mean, that's like the, I don't know, just the way it looks like they're really good at design and branding. And I think they did hit the nail on the head with that here. I think it's an exciting look. I'm just waiting for the tech to catch up. And then I will be excited, I promise, once it does. ([Time 0:32:09](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fb91e9fe-e5a3-43fb-89a6-6b87af3c8e97)) - **Expedia Influencer Program** - Expedia's new program lets influencers share travel recommendations and earn revenue. - It will eventually extend to all users, allowing them to profit from shared trips. Transcript: Tom Merritt This is Chris Christensen from Amateur Traveler with another Tech in Travel Minute. Expedia is launching 100 new travel shops curated by social media creators, tastemakers, and brands, according to an article from Travel Pulse. They're allowing creators to share and save their travel recommendations on the Expedia app. And the idea is that you say that this is a great trip and that other people who book that trip, you get a cut of the revenue. Apparently next year they'll be rolling that out to every user and not just to travel influencers. And no, I'm not one of the 100 travel influencers they're working with. Again, it's Expedia, look for travel shops, and this is Chris Christensen from Amateur Traveler. Well, Chris should be on the influencer list, don't you think? Sarah Lane Absolutely. Thank ([Time 0:32:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/99347fc1-cc3c-4961-a7da-a46c65acd768))