Why Apple Intelligence Is Not as Impressive as Many Expected

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Last year, Apple surprised us with a brand-new type of technology. During its 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote, Apple unveiled its new and powerful AI, or Apple Intelligence, as the company calls it.
On paper, this feature was meant to help you with many things: it could search your iPhone to find things like appointments or specific moments in videos, it could change the way you write your messages to sound more professional or friendly, and it would even be capable of creating nearly any artwork or emoji you can think of.
Apple made a big deal out of its Apple Intelligence technology, although it wasn’t officially released until a month after the iPhone 16 came, arriving in an iOS 18.1 update in October 2024. It was such a big deal that many Apple fans and tech enthusiasts thought this would be the moment when AI would become officially mainstream.
Fast-forward a few months, and now we’ve seen the true power of Apple Intelligence — or should we say, the lack thereof? As it turns out, Apple Intelligence hasn’t been as big or valuable as we thought it would be, and there are quite a few reasons why that is the case.
Let’s examine what has gone wrong with Apple Intelligence and how Apple could turn it around and make it the AI technology we were all hoping for.
Apple Intelligence: Just a Bunch of Promises

When Apple first revealed Apple Intelligence, many of us were excited about the possibilities Apple’s AI technology would offer.
However, Apple made it clear from the start that we wouldn’t see any Apple Intelligence features for at least a few months, disappointing many Apple fans. The wait meant we wouldn’t know if Apple Intelligence was worth it.
Once Apple Intelligence was officially available to the public, it didn’t include most of the features we were promised, and Apple only confirmed that they would come in the future.
Fast-forward to December 2024, and Apple finally released some of the most exciting and promising features of Apple Intelligence with the iOS 18.2 software update.
That said, many features are still missing. Siri isn’t as smart as we expected, and many of the core new features that Apple showed during its WWDC presentation aren’t coming until later in 2025.
Apple tends not to rush things, as it likes to release new features when it thinks they’re ready. However, with all the AI craze and how every other company has implemented AI in its products, Apple probably felt forced to tell the world that it’s working on its own AI.
Unfortunately, it left us with many promises and half-baked features that disappointed people.
Apple Intelligence Features Aren’t as Good as Apple Wants Us to Think

Another huge reason people don’t care for Apple Intelligence is that the features available are underwhelming.
Some features can kind of do their job. For instance, using Writing Tools on your iPhone or Mac might help you change the tone of something you wrote or give you another alternative for the words you’re using.
But other features, like summaries, haven’t worked as well. Many users have reported confusing and misleading notifications and email summaries. The summaries often make no sense, and you need to check the messages yourself, which is the exact opposite of what you expect from an AI feature.
Siri is also not as smart as we expected it to be. Not only are the most expected features a few months away, likely starting with iOS 18.4, but Siri sometimes feels even dumber than before. We were expecting a smarter virtual assistant, but sometimes, it feels like the only change was in Siri’s colors and design.
Of course, we’re sure that Apple is working hard to improve these features, but for now, they’re not worth it.
Apple Intelligence Can Be a Very Expensive and Exclusive Feature

Many users tend to buy Apple products because the hardware and software tend to last a long time. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to use Apple Intelligence unless you have the right Apple product.
Apple Intelligence is available on every Mac and most iPads released in the last four years. However, many people chose to buy the regular iPhone 15 in 2023 and 2024, which doesn’t support any form of Apple Intelligence.
You won’t be able to use Apple Intelligence if you have a Mac and iPad with an M series chip, an iPhone 15 Pro, or one of the latest iPhone 16 models. That’s not a high bar for Mac or iPad users, but it definitely leaves many iPhone owners out.
This makes this new technology more exclusive — and expensive — than others. Many regular users won’t upgrade their devices to use Apple Intelligence, especially if this technology doesn’t work well. Combine this with the great number of free AI alternatives you can use from almost any device, and then you start to understand why Apple Intelligence is not the big hit Apple was expecting.
People Are Fed Up With AI
To no one’s surprise, 2024 was the year of artificial intelligence. Whether it had tech products or not, every company started using AI because it thought it was what people wanted.
Truth be told, some AI tools are really helpful, and they might even make your work or personal life easier. But every tech company focusing on AI technology in 2024 made us sick and tired of hearing the words “artificial intelligence.”
Of course, Apple needed to be part of that trend. Being the only tech company that didn’t embrace AI might have hurt Apple’s bottom line, which the company couldn’t allow. However, both the WWDC and the iPhone event focused heavily on AI when users were already numb to the idea of yet another artificial intelligence robot.
Apple Intelligence Isn’t That Intelligent

Let’s say all of the Apple Intelligence features the company announced were already available and fully functional. How much would your life really change because of Apple Intelligence? Would it make your job or personal life easier? Based on what Apple has offered so far, probably not.
Besides a couple of instances where you would use Siri’s context awareness to find your flight information or the writing tools to double-check your email to your boss, Apple Intelligence doesn’t seem that helpful for your life or productivity.
This is especially true compared to other AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. These tools can help developers, copywriters, marketing teams, and even lawyers or doctors. Even if they’re not 100% accurate, they can give you great information about anything you ask for as a starting point to confirm with your own research. Apple Intelligence can’t compete with this.
Apple knows this, which is why it added ChatGPT integration to the iPhone. If Siri can’t answer your questions — which still happens way too often — it will ask if you want to use ChatGPT instead.
If you already know Siri won’t be helpful, you’re better off using ChatGPT from the start (which you can do through Siri by prefixing your request with “Ask ChatGPT”). Again, this might change in the future, and Apple might add many other tools to help you at work or school, but until then, you’re better off using ChatGPT instead.
Will Apple Intelligence Ever Live Up to the Expectations?
As of right now, Apple Intelligence is not what anybody expected. Only time will tell if Apple will live up to the hype it created last June.
For Apple Intelligence to be incredible, Apple would need to improve the already available features and create new, more useful features for pro users. Until then, we’ll have to wait and see if Apple manages to turn Apple Intelligence from a gimmick to a game-changing feature.