Apple has just released iOS 18.2, bringing some of the new artificial intelligence (AI) tools that were introduced in September. However, the much-anticipated improved Siri feature has been delayed until 2026, that is, after the iPhone 17 launch.
This means that the current version of Siri still has trouble understanding basic commands and queries. Fortunately, iOS 18.2 has integrated ChatGPT, which allows Siri to forward user questions or requests to a smarter AI model.
Another much-anticipated feature is notification summaries. But when they were released, they weren't as smart as Apple advertised.
On forums, users have shared countless screenshots of Apple Intelligence's notification summaries being wrong or severely confusing messages.
One example shared was when the system told a Reddit user that their father had been in an accident – a completely false statement.
Such glitches happen so often that an entire online community has emerged where users share their Apple Intelligence mistakes.
The text summarization feature for web pages and documents—one of Apple’s touted highlights—also repeatedly failed. In many cases, the tool simply refused to work, reporting that it couldn’t summarize the content, defeating the purpose of on-demand AI assistance.
After much waiting, users finally get access to Image Playground and Genmoji, two features that Apple has been heavily promoting.
However, these tools are severely limited. According to detailed testing from MacRumors, Apple Intelligence’s image-generating capabilities are even worse than the free access to Dall-E 3 (a popular image-generating AI model) on Bing.
Genmoji and Image Playground mostly refuse to create human-related images and even have difficulty with humanoid characters.
More surprisingly, even the request to create an image of an iPhone was impossible. The seemingly simple request required the user to master complex scripting skills just to get mediocre results.
That’s not to say that Apple’s AI is completely useless. When it works properly, Apple’s Intelligence tools can actually deliver a good experience. But right now, these features fall far short of expectations, with performance that’s only “acceptable.”
After a year of disappointing software updates, Apple needs to make a breakthrough. With what it has, it clearly hasn’t met user expectations.
