Proofreading is fine just like spellchecking was before.
It’s having software write entire sentences or paragraphs for you (and that’s what Apple’s silly video showed) that’s verboten. Well, strictly speaking, you can do that too, but then you have to specify that not you, but somebody else’s generative AI wrote your paper.
I would love it if Apple came up with an automatically updating, country-specific, description of what’s actually available now. I keep reading about iOS 18 features that are available, or should be available soon, or are available in the U.S., but not in Canada, etc.
I’ll read about a feature on a site like TidBITS, and think, oh, interesting - only to find the feature absent on my phone, even though we’re both running the same iOS, supposedly.
Not blaming TidBITS, this is completely on Apple. The lack of clarity on what I can actually do on my phone or computer has me ignoring articles on the new updates, as they usually lead to disappointment these days.
I remember when we all got the same system software, dadgummit! </old man ranting>
It’s gotten even worse with so many rumor sites, Apple pre-announcing features at developer conference (which now makes worldwide news and used to be only of interest to actual programmers), and so many different OSes.
I really like Adam running his “Do you use it polls?” because it reminds of me features I found exciting when announced, but the actual rollout was months later and by then I’d forgotten all about it. Now we’ve got so many features that require regulation/permission from various government agencies (AI, satellite service, hearing aids, etc.) that it’s really getting crazy!
This is pretty close: iOS and iPadOS 26 - Feature Availability - Apple (albeit hard to find). Frustrating, though, that it doesn’t seem to include Apple Intelligence, but maybe because it’s new, or considered beta. (See How to get Apple Intelligence - Apple Support).
Yeah, I feel badly when people are bit by such things, but it is really difficult to find the information reliably (it’s often there, but in very small print at the bottom) and even when I can find it, it’s hard to work into articles in such a way that is readable.
Yes! That’s one of the goals of those polls, and once things settle down a bit, I need to get back to more of them.
Thank you for the suggestion, just looked at it.
In theory, that kind of page might be useful, but as you point out, it isn’t up to date, and doesn’t have a useful “last updated” notation anywhere. IMO, any web page with news or info like this on it should have the date it was last edited, right up at the top.
The page also suffers from the “pick an item, and we’ll tell you if you can have it” issue that I get with clothing store web pages. Those folk don’t understand that I only want to see the items they sell that fit me, so let me filter by size first. Likewise, the Apple page really should have an option to filter by country first. Having to see if Canada is mentioned in each and every entry is backwards.
Yup, got bit by government regulatory thing - Canada hasn’t approved the hearing test/hearing aid functionality yet, so no joy there.
(I actually remember when Apple used to have computer-model-specific versions of the system software… Don’t miss those days 
)
A brief afternoon test proved to me, once again, that Siri is a sad joke. I have enabled it on my phone only because CarPlay does not work without it.
“Hey Siri” may or may not invoke Siri, depending on whether AirPod/Bluetooth is connected. Double-tapping to invoke Type to Siri never works on the Home screen, sometimes works in apps; it stopped working once I connected to Bluetooth in my car. Siri failed to start a phone call when I was wearing AirPods, nor could it invoke Walkie-Talkie on my watch (but offered to download a third-party walkie-talkie app—but only when I typed the request. Siri has never understood what I speak, even though text dictation has worked fine).
“Hey Siri, why don’t you work?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
Obviously.
Any speculation as to why macOS doesn’t allow for a similar max charging setting as iOS now does? I’m not a huge fan of “optimized charging” because I find it cannot anticipate unusual use scenarios. A slider like iOS 18.1 that allows just not charging a MBP beyond 90% would most likely help with battery aging. Maybe in a subsequent update.
Imagine my disappointment when after all the Apple marketing hyperbole about Apple Intelligence and how this is going to change our lives and yada yada, I learn that even with all the AI super sauce in macOS 15.1 Siri is still dumb as a rock.
Me: Open Control Center settings.
Siri: Sorry, I can’t help you with that.
2nd try
Me: Open Settings
… Settings launches…
Me: Now, open Control Center
Siri: It doesn’t look like you have an app named “Control Center”.
I believe that was expected from this release - small improvements, not dramatic ones.
(A story from today, but I read others during the beta that said the same.)
Siri, so far, has been little more than a scripting language. No intelligence, artificial or otherwise. (FWIW, Amazon’s Alexa is exactly the same. I don’t know about Google’s assistant.)
It will be interesting if this new AI work is going to change its ability to understand language, or if it is only going to impact what it does when it executes the resulting commands.
The Economist had an article about this a few months ago, in which they argued that the use of LLMs in science writing might actually be a good thing in some ways. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts, though the article is behind a paywall, and anyway it would probably be off-topic to discuss this more.
How do you know this? Are you certain that bad actors won’t exploit the power of AI for nefarious purposes? I’m not. They’ve exploited everything else. Who’s going to stop them now? 
I’d say that if a true AI - an actual artificial life form that is self-aware and intelligent - existed, then we would definitely have to be worried about it. And something akin to Asimov’s three laws of robotics would probably be necessary.
But we are quite a long way from being able to develop any such thing. Which is why I really object to the press using the term “AI” to refer to any algorithm implemented with a neural net.
It seems vanishingly unlikely on the iPhone because of Apple’s best-in-class security. If bad actors could regularly break into the iPhone, we’d see much bigger problems than we do now. As it stands, security vulnerabilities on the iPhone are limited to nation-states and major organized crime, and even then, once they’re used against high-value targets and discovered, Apple shuts them down with security updates.
Why is the iPhone the only possible point of entry? And why is breaking into our devices the only way that AI technology in the hands of bad actors can be used inappropriately? Even without AI technology, we are all vulnerable to intrusive exploits even if we never use the internet because the corporations and institutions we do business with do use the internet and many of them are routinely compromised by hackers eho wish to do them (and us) harm. We are all like people living in crime-ridden neighborhoods who think we’re safe because there are locks in our doors. We’re not safe at all!
It’s not, but it’s what you quoted from @Shamino in your reply. macOS isn’t as secure as iOS and iPadOS, but it’s good. Speculation about a bad actor somehow infiltrating macOS and turning Apple Intelligence to nefarious purposes borders on (dark) fantasy.
It’s not, but this topic is about Apple Intelligence, not AI in general.
This is also unrelated to Apple Intelligence (and massively overstating the case). If you wish to discuss the reality of online security for the everyday Apple user, please start a new topic.
In your opinion. I’m not thinking about Apple Intelligence as much as about the obvious fact that there are legions of very bad actors out there who get off on exploiting every vulnerability they can. To me it’s naive to think that people like this won’t try to use Apple Intelligence against us. Davis Shamino was speaking generally, and so am I. I stand by my comment that we’re living in a crime-ridden neighborhood thinking we’re safe because our doors are locked.