Question Apple Intelligence - how is it for you?

[Kid_Eternity]

So, another part of the big roll out of Apple Intelligence...across their various platforms and for me that means my M1 MBP (being the only Apple device that can run it)...updated it and found that unless I change my language to US English I can't access it, until December when UK English arrives. Dammit!

Anyway, are you running it, how have you found it so far?

 

[sim667]

I have it my iPhone, it’s ok, not game changing. The photo editing stuff is ok, but the devil is in the detail, so zooming it it’s a bit iffy, but I suspect no worse compared to other offerings. The abbreviating of emails I really like, and the AI rewrite I haven’t used in anger yet but works well.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

I'm sorta the same Kid_Eternity I have an M1 MBA, my iPad and iPhone can't run this. The phone isn't my daily carry anyway.

Wasn't aware of the UK English/December issue and had just assumed it wasn't here yet or that I hadn't switched something on.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

I'm sorta the same Kid_Eternity I have an M1 MBA, my iPad and iPhone can't run this. The phone isn't my daily carry anyway.

Wasn't aware of the UK English/December issue and had just assumed it wasn't here yet or that I hadn't switched something on.

Yep I thought the same until a little note came up while noodling through the settings...

 

[Saul Goodman]

 

[Kid_Eternity]

View attachment 449053

Not the thread for it fella.

 

[Silas Loom]

It doesn’t look like any sort of reason for upgrading from my mini six to a mini seven. I can skim-read or proof emails perfectly well unaided and I don’t really care about photos.

AI-driven capabilities that I would like on my ipad mini:

• predictively upgrading degraded football streams to glorious HD in real time
• a bot for joining a comprehensive portfolio of online communities devoted to niche interests and gaining sufficient social credit through anodyne but upbeat automated posts to allow me to ask stupid newbie questions whenever I want in every expectation of helpful responses
• a really good and incredibly granular fly-and-zoom mapping app, so I can soar across continents and dive down to explore forests and then sticks and then cells, even atoms.

Until those show, meh.

 

[magneze]

Irrelevant

 

[Saul Goodman]

Not the thread for it fella.

Nonsense. There couldn't be a more appropriate thread.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

Nonsense. There couldn't be a more appropriate thread.

Go on then ...

 

[freshapple]

I have a 15 pro running 18.2 beta. Siri feels a bit more useful, I like the lights round the edge. Chat gpt integration is useful. Still waiting for Image Playground to download fully .

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Nonsense. There couldn't be a more appropriate thread.

You’re an idiot.

 

[Saul Goodman]

You’re an idiot.

You're an Apple Fanboy, who gets triggered by any little joke aimed at the overpriced mediocre tech he worships

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

I have zero interest in it tbh, what exactly can it do?

 

[Happy Tree]

iPhone 14, so no AI for me. But then I've switched Siri off anyway.

 

[Winot]

I have zero interest in it tbh, what exactly can it do?

Nothing of interest (yet?). It's a solution in search of a problem.

 

[sim667]

I am liking the summaries of emails…… particularly on wordy ones from businesses.

Having used it for a little while I’m still underwhelmed, particularly so considering it’s what they’ve sold iOS18 around. Frankly, I’ve also been quite disappointed with the amount of bugs generally on the software update since having my new phone (most of which I’ve sorted out now myself, apple support haven’t been particularly good which is contrary to my previous experiences of them). Generally I’m going to withhold reservations on the Intelligence stuff until it’s properly released, and I’m using it on a computer too which is where I think, for me, the main usage will be. This year with my pay rise, having paid off my wedding it was time to update a load of stuff I’ve been holding off doing until I had more spare cash, so it’s been a new laptop, new phone and new watch and I feel I’m just a few months ahead of the curve for progression within the Mac ecosystem to really see the benefits of new developments.

That said I have been using AI generally quite a lot in my day to day life prior to all these updates, as an internet search tool, undertaking a 30 second analysis and doing menial tasks that are a means to improving my studies, work, or even just little things for my partner I can really see the power in it, and I think a lot of people who are generally dismissive of AI are probably using it quite poorly. So off the basis of that I’m still quite excited about having it baked into the OS of the devices I use, and despite my criticisms of apple with some of the teething issues I’ve had recently, one thing that apple have always done well is integrating new ideas at an OS level.

 

[freshapple]

I’m having fun with the image generation and Memojis

 

[scifisam]

I am liking the summaries of emails…… particularly on wordy ones from businesses.

Having used it for a little while I’m still underwhelmed, particularly so considering it’s what they’ve sold iOS18 around. Frankly, I’ve also been quite disappointed with the amount of bugs generally on the software update since having my new phone (most of which I’ve sorted out now myself, apple support haven’t been particularly good which is contrary to my previous experiences of them). Generally I’m going to withhold reservations on the Intelligence stuff until it’s properly released, and I’m using it on a computer too which is where I think, for me, the main usage will be. This year with my pay rise, having paid off my wedding it was time to update a load of stuff I’ve been holding off doing until I had more spare cash, so it’s been a new laptop, new phone and new watch and I feel I’m just a few months ahead of the curve for progression within the Mac ecosystem to really see the benefits of new developments.

That said I have been using AI generally quite a lot in my day to day life prior to all these updates, as an internet search tool, undertaking a 30 second analysis and doing menial tasks that are a means to improving my studies, work, or even just little things for my partner I can really see the power in it, and I think a lot of people who are generally dismissive of AI are probably using it quite poorly. So off the basis of that I’m still quite excited about having it baked into the OS of the devices I use, and despite my criticisms of apple with some of the teething issues I’ve had recently, one thing that apple have always done well is integrating new ideas at an OS level.

If you're using AI as an internet search tool it's highly likely you're relying on false results. Other people aren't using it poorly, it's simply not very good.

This "intelligence" integration makes me extra glad not to have Apple products. Integrating ChatGPT

And yes, it is the appropriate thread for it, Kid Eternity. You make it sound like Saul mooned a funeral

 

[sim667]

If you're using AI as an internet search tool it's highly likely you're relying on false results. Other people aren't using it poorly, it's simply not very good.

This "intelligence" integration makes me extra glad not to have Apple products. Integrating ChatGPT

And yes, it is the appropriate thread for it, Kid Eternity. You make it sound like Saul mooned a funeral

I’ve not struggled with the search result, it may well depend on the terminology your search. Although in the case of search results I’m more talking about the generic overviews provided by AI at the top of google search results, rather than using something like ChatGPT to search for results.

What I have found to work well is asking ChatGPT specific questions and asking to include sources, often specifying “UK sources” and then using that to actually read the important information. In the case of notebooklm you’re specifically giving it the sources you want it to use, and that’s been good so far although I’m still early days of dabbling with it

 

[scifisam]

I’ve not struggled with the search result, it may well depend on the terminology your search. Although in the case of search results I’m more talking about the generic overviews provided by AI at the top of google search results, rather than using something like ChatGPT to search for results.

What I have found to work well is asking ChatGPT specific questions and asking to include sources, often specifying “UK sources” and then using that to actually read the important information. In the case of notebooklm you’re specifically giving it the sources you want it to use, and that’s been good so far although I’m still early days of dabbling with it

It's the AI summaries I'm talking about. And it's nothing to do with my search terms, they simply get the information wrong too often to be worth using.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

If AI is ever going to be actually useful/mainstream the idea you have to use it “properly” or learn what to do needs to go.

It should… work. The whole point is to make things easier, no?

We’re miles off yet.

 

[sim667]

If AI is ever going to be actually useful/mainstream the idea you have to use it “properly” or learn what to do needs to go.

It should… work. The whole point is to make things easier, no?

We’re miles off yet.

Well that’s a bit like saying you don’t need to learn how to use anything, all tools should just work the minute you sit down to, AI will be the right tool used correctly for the right thing, what it won’t be is an all encompassing fix for every facet of you life.

AI will also always struggle with GIGO, if you feed it garbage (I.e. give it unfettered access to the entire internet), it will spit out garbage. Learning how to use it is learning how to apply critical thinking to it, either by not feeding it garbage, or recognising garbage it spits out.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Well that’s a bit like saying you don’t need to learn how to use anything, all tools should just work the minute you sit down to, AI will be the right tool used correctly for the right thing, what it won’t be is an all encompassing fix for every facet of you life.

AI will also always struggle with GIGO, if you feed it garbage (I.e. give it unfettered access to the entire internet), it will spit out garbage. Learning how to use it is learning how to apply critical thinking to it, either by not feeding it garbage, or recognising garbage it spits out.

I kinda meant more that it should be something that’s just there, in the background, making whatever you’re using easier/better/more accurate etc iyswim

 

[magneze]

Some great stuff here: Apple AI notification summaries exist; rarely useful, often hilarious

 

[sim667]

I kinda meant more that it should be something that’s just there, in the background, making whatever you’re using easier/better/more accurate etc iyswim

Its application is far more expansive than just being a thing on your smart devices, it's an incredible research too, but also suited for mundane tasks. I've used it for research the niche area I'm writing my dissertation on this week, but I've also used it to take photos of my dvd collection on a shelf, recognise the names of the dvd's, remove duplicates, append the dates of the movies in brackets and then use that list to write a bash script to make a folder for each of those on my NAS (so I could then add it as a library to radarr and download the movies from there via torrent instead of ripping them all one by one).

Fundamentally after adoption its going to make a lot of jobs redundant, but its also going to create a new job market managing, developing and understanding at a granular level how to use AI correctly.

Not to mentioned the market for recognition of AI generated content once it starts being used for nefarious purposes.