I’ll admit: I wasn’t enthusiastic about Apple Intelligence when it was announced at WWDC, Apple’s yearly developer conference, back in June. After seeing countless AI models try to replace certain apps like Mail or generative features, Apple Intelligence didn’t fill me with confidence.
I was, and still am, more enthusiastic about how AI can help those with accessibility needs with visual and audio impairments. At WWDC, I struggled to see the benefits of such features as ‘Writing Tools’, which can rewrite inputted text across macOS Sequoia, iOS 18, and iPadOS 18, into something casual or professional. Then there’s Image Playground, Apple’s take on generative AI. Apple Intelligence will create an image or an emoji based on your text or voice prompt. I’ll be honest, I winced at this section during the WWDC keynote. The resulting images still look rough, creepy even, and ultimately I see no benefit to this or the audience this feature serves.
Fast forward to July 29, and Apple released beta versions of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 with support for Apple Intelligence. I signed up my M1 iPad Pro to the beta program and within an hour, I was able to use Apple’s AI features. I was unimpressed by the features, except for one: the summarize feature in the Mail app, which can provide a 4-line summary of what an email includes. After using this feature for less than a day, I can safely say that it’s the only aspect I like of Apple Intelligence so far.
Byte-sized newsletters
I subscribe to a lot of newsletters, which all arrive in my Mail app weekly. These include Rings of Saturn, which goes into detail about scrapped content from games, and Read Only Memo, which covers the latest news in retro-gaming emulation.
These newsletters can be great to read during a lunch break or on the weekend, but sometimes I just want the gist of what they include. This is where the ‘Summarize’ feature in the Mail app comes in handy.
If you’re running the beta versions of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, or macOS Sequoia 15.1 with an Apple device running an M1 chip or above, open the Mail app and select an email with a lot of text. At the top of this email, you’ll see a new ‘Summarize’ icon to the right. Press it, and you’ll get a four-line summary of the email. In my day-long usage of this feature, I've found it to be fast and accurate, although there have been rare moments when Apple Intelligence has, for some reason, refused to summarize an email, such as other newsletters. When it works though, it works well.
If you’re still unsure about the ‘Summarize’ feature, think of it as looking at the back of a book when browsing in a bookstore. You’ll usually find a summary of what the book is about, tempting you to buy it.
This feature is an example of how AI can help you, instead of enhancing what you create through words with ‘Writing Tools’, or how Apple Intelligence can generate creepy images from a text or voice prompt. ‘Summarize’ can help to give you an idea of what an email entails, which could encourage you to read it in full.
It’s why this feature is the only one I like so far. I’m looking forward to seeing it improve over the coming months until the iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 updates are out of beta and widely available. For now, though, I’m going to use ‘Summarize’ in the Mail app as much as I can to see how it fares with other types of emails, such as deals newsletters, responses from an interview, and more.
