Apple Completes AI Starter Kit

Apple Intelligence: A Mixed Bag of AI Features

Suggested replies aren’t new in iOS 18.2, but they’re a piece of the Apple Intelligence feature set that’s falling into place with this week’s public release of 18.2. Those suggestions I got while planning lunch kind of sum up my whole experience with Apple’s AI up ’til now: occasionally helpful, sometimes way off base, and often good for a laugh. But once the novelty wears off, it’s easily ignored — just like the AI feature sets on every other so-called AI smartphone I’ve used this year.

Apple’s AI Journey

Apple took its time getting here. The first set of AI features dropped with iOS 18.1 at the end of October, including notification and email summaries, generative writing tools, and a cleanup tool to take distractions out of photos. It felt like a deeply minimum viable product, but Apple had to get something out the door for its “built for Apple Intelligence” iPhones.

iOS 18.2: A Meatier Set of Updates

Now, iOS 18.2 has officially arrived after months of beta testing with a meatier set of updates: the Image Playground app for AI image generation, Genmoji, and a ChatGPT extension for Siri. You also get Visual Intelligence, but only with an iPhone 16 or 16 Pro, for reasons that are unclear. There’s more to come, of course, but Apple has finally shipped a set of AI features that resembles Samsung’s and Google’s. The problem is that all of those phone makers are still a long way from delivering the AI smartphones we’ve been promised.

Siri’s Big Update

Siri’s big update in 18.2 is the addition of ChatGPT. It’ll still set timers and answer your basic questions the way it always has, but now it can send more complex queries to ChatGPT. It’s opt in and doesn’t require an OpenAI account to use, which is nice. It’s still just as prone to making stuff up as ever, but it can act as a helpful starting point if you want some assistance with a complex topic.

Image Playground: A Flashy but Limited Feature

Of all the updates iOS 18.2 offers, Image Playground is probably the flashiest. It’s a standalone app with a waitlist, but once you’re in, it unlocks image creation tools in other places throughout the OS, too. Image Playground is a lot like Google’s Pixel Studio, but with way stricter guardrails — that’s a good thing, mostly. Requests to create an image of Pikachu sticking a paper clip in an electrical outlet were denied, which is great news for Pikachu.

Genmoji: A Feature with Limitations

Genmoji is on even stricter rails, and in my experience, it gets things right a lot. But there are some pretty obvious limitations, including the fact that they’re so tiny it’s hard to see much detail in them. They’re supposed to be tiny, but you can forget that and get carried away adding a bunch of stuff and then find it all barely visible in the final product. It made a decent depiction of me in front of a Christmas tree drinking from a red coffee cup that looks good in preview but is impossible to parse at typical emoji size. They also don’t work well in group texts with RCS, so I can’t respond to family texts with obnoxious emoji, which is my primary use case for this feature.

Conclusion

That’s my biggest problem with AI on phones right now. Often, it does what it’s supposed to do. But it’s rarely helpful and doesn’t feel like it’s solving any real problem I was having. That’s been my complaint about this year’s devices from Google and Samsung; now, Apple is at least in the conversation. But they’re all in the same position, with equal pressure to deliver something in 2025 that isn’t just a collection of funny tricks — the novelty is wearing off fast.

FAQs

Q: What is Apple Intelligence?
A: Apple Intelligence is a set of AI features that Apple has been developing for its iPhones, including suggested replies, image generation, and more.

Q: What is Image Playground?
A: Image Playground is a standalone app that allows users to create images using AI technology. It’s a part of the Apple Intelligence feature set.

Q: What is Genmoji?
A: Genmoji is a feature that allows users to create custom emojis using AI technology. It’s a part of the Apple Intelligence feature set.

Q: Is Siri getting an update in iOS 18.2?
A: Yes, Siri is getting an update in iOS 18.2, which includes the addition of ChatGPT. It’ll allow users to send more complex queries to ChatGPT and get more accurate answers.