An Honest Review of Apple Intelligence - Berimblau Reacts 20241123

MKBHD's "Apple Intelligence" Review: A Detailed Briefing
This briefing document analyzes MKBHD's YouTube video reviewing Apple Intelligence features released and upcoming as of November 2024.

Overall Impression:

While Apple heavily promotes "Apple Intelligence," its practical application and impact remain questionable.
Some features, like the background eraser tool in Photos, are impressive, but many feel gimmicky or redundant.
MKBHD highlights the irony of relying on AI for tasks easily accomplished through human interaction.
The true benefit might lie in increased base memory across Apple devices.
Detailed Feature Review:

1. Writing Tools:

Function: Generative AI adjusts pre-written text with options like "friendly," "professional," and "concise" modes.
Pros: Works offline and processes quickly. Concise mode is potentially useful for shortening text.
Cons: Repetitive UI, limited practical application for writing professionals, and sometimes ineffective results.
Quote: "I think the friendly mode mostly uses like shorter sentences and lots of exclamation points. And then the professional mode kind of does the opposite."

2. Notification Summaries:

Function: Condenses multiple notifications from a single app into a short summary.
Cons: Summaries often fail to accurately capture the essence of messages, making the feature largely useless and sometimes humorous.
Quote: "I've seen lots of examples online and there's plenty of memes, too, of Apple's notifications, summaries doing some sometimes hilarious work, some brutal stuff."

3. GenMoji:

Function: Creates custom emojis based on text descriptions.
Pros: Novel and entertaining.
Cons: Very specific use case with limited practical application. Content restrictions can be inconsistent.
Quote: "And yes, it will sometimes refuse to make what you ask of it. If you ask for something like crazy or graphic, although it seems to have no problem making a potato with a gun, so that's an emoji reaction you can send, sick."

4. Image Playground:

Function: Generates cartoon-style images from text descriptions, including options to incorporate people from photos.
Pros: Fun and potentially useful for creative expression.
Cons: Limited to cartoon style, content restrictions can be bypassed. Debatable real-world usefulness.
Quote: "Good thing it says it's in beta and may create unexpected results. This is yet another app that they've added to my phone that I predict that I will probably never use again after making this video."

5. Priority Notifications:

Function: Prioritizes certain notifications while in Focus Mode. Also prioritizes high-priority emails in the Mail app.
Pros: Improves notification management, particularly for Mail app users.
Cons: Similar functionality exists in other email clients like Gmail.
6. Photo Background Removal:

Function: Removes unwanted background objects from photos using generative AI.
Pros: Highly effective, surpassing Google's Magic Eraser in accuracy and ease of use.
Cons: Limited to a single AI feature in the Photos app compared to competitors.
Quote: "I'm going to say I actually think this one works better than Google's. It's better at getting a good outline of the phot bomber or the background object in a single gesture, which is nice. It's really smart."

7. Recording Summaries:

Function: Records phone calls, transcribes them, and generates summaries.
Pros: Accurate transcriptions and useful summaries, especially for meetings or lectures.
Cons: Only available for phone call recordings, not integrated with Voice Memos app.
Quote: "But Apple, why don't you bring this to the voice memos app? This is I want to be able to sit this down in a lecture or a meeting and have it record things so I can summarize them later."

8. Visual Intelligence (iPhone 16/16 Pro):

Function: Allows users to point their phone at an object and ask ChatGPT about it or search for it online.
Pros: Seamless integration of image recognition and AI.
Cons: Similar functionality previously existed on other phones like Samsung Galaxy S8.
Quote: "While this is a very pretty UI and it works pretty quickly, it also isn't anything, you know, particularly new that we haven't seen before."