Originally published at: Apple Intelligence to Be Enabled on All Compatible Devices - TidBITS
This week should bring the releases of macOS 15.3 Sequoia, iOS 18.3, and iPadOS 18.3. They will include bug fixes (including one for the Apple Software Restore tool that brings back bootable backups), security updates, and a handful of minor improvements, but the primary focus remains Apple Intelligence, with various tweaks and improvements. Although Apple seems to be maintaining its “beta” label, these releases will also enable Apple Intelligence for all devices that support it: any Mac with Apple silicon, iPhone 15 Pro or later, iPad Pro or iPad Air with M-series chips, or the 7th-generation iPad mini with the A17 Pro.
Apple’s developer release notes say:
For users new or upgrading to macOS 15.3, Apple Intelligence will be enabled automatically during Mac onboarding. Users will have access to Apple Intelligence features after setting up their devices. To disable Apple Intelligence, users will need to navigate to the Apple Intelligence & Siri Settings pane and turn off the Apple Intelligence toggle. This will disable Apple Intelligence features on their device.
This decision has triggered widespread commentary on Daring Fireball, Macworld, Pixel Envy, and others. I find Apple’s move unsurprising because Apple Intelligence isn’t a discrete thing; it’s a large and disparate collection of features, including:
- Photos: Clean Up, natural language searching, and improved Memory movie creation
- Text and Writing: Writing Tools with ChatGPT integration for any app
- Communication: Priority messages in Mail, Smart Reply and summaries in both Mail and Messages
- Notes and Phone: Audio transcription summaries
- Creative Tools: Genmoji and Image Playground for image generation, Image Wand for Apple Pencil sketches
- Focus: Intelligent Breakthrough & Silencing and Reduce Interruptions Focus
- Notifications: Summaries for busy apps and conversations
- Siri: Enhanced capabilities but primarily ChatGPT integration
- Camera: Visual Intelligence integration with ChatGPT and Google Image Search (iPhone 16 only)
That’s a lot. Beyond the fact that Apple Intelligence is the major marketing thrust for this batch of operating systems, it makes no sense for Apple to offer so many features only to people who realize they must manually enable Apple Intelligence. Had Apple released all these features independently rather than bundling them under the Apple Intelligence rubric, no one would have said anything about wanting to control them all together.
Don’t take that to mean that these features are fully baked or even good. Apart from a few standouts, they’re forgettable. Clean Up is welcome for those who use Photos instead of Lightroom, and Writing Tools may be helpful for those who would never subscribe to Grammarly. I’m sure others have their favorites—some Apple Pencil users may love Image Wand, for instance—but it’s easy to ignore most of the rest. The less said of Siri at this point, the better.
The storage requirements are substantial. Apple says Apple Intelligence needs 7 GB of free space during installation, which may be leaving some headroom for expansion. Apple Intelligence consumes 5.78 GB on my iPhone 16 Pro and 5.5 GB on my M1 MacBook Air. (Look in Settings/System Settings > General > iPhone Storage/Storage > iOS/macOS.) Turning off Apple Intelligence did not release that space, though iOS might have reclaimed it had I been low. Storing and running Apple Intelligence’s models on our devices is the price we pay for privacy.
The “beta” label is another issue. Traditionally, beta releases are feature-complete and have no known serious bugs. Apple Intelligence as a whole—if it were a thing—isn’t yet feature-complete, and while we don’t know if Apple knows that it has serious bugs, the blatantly wrong news summaries and incorrect identification of spouses would seem to qualify. But bemoaning abuses of the “beta” label is nothing new—Geoff Duncan wrote about it 29 years ago in “Waiting with Beta’d Breath” (13 May 1996). I was amused to discover Geoff’s article linked in support of “perpetual beta” in Wikipedia.
Ultimately, I’m neither surprised nor all that perturbed by Apple turning on Apple Intelligence for everyone. It was bound to happen eventually. I remain curious as to how long Apple will attempt to explain away Apple Intelligence’s failings by the fact that it’s in “beta.” It’s difficult to justify such a tag for features that are standard across hundreds of millions of devices. Future problems can’t be laid at the feet of a pretend “beta”—they’re just bugs.
Should you turn off Apple Intelligence after Apple turns it on for you? If you’re confident that you’ll never want to use Clean Up, Writing Tools, or any other features, there’s no real harm in deactivating it in Settings/System Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri. However, I don’t see much point in doing so. Like so many other features Apple adds to its apps and operating systems, most Apple Intelligence features won’t get in your way, and those that might—like notification summaries—can be turned off independently.