Should I just turn off Apple Intelligence?

[TheWraith]

I've been on the betas for 18.1 and 18.2, so I've had quite some time playing with Apple Intelligence. Step by step I have been turning it off.

All the email features are off—the summaries were often wrong, as are the classifications on the phone. Notification summaries were usually right, but not that useful, and that is now off. I do know how to write emails, so I just haven't needed it to 'professionalize' my writing—I write for a living. The 'new' Siri is the same as the old Siri with different visual effects. I have a 16 PM but I have never needed to have it use visual intelligence.

The best AI feature? The magic tool in Photos...which coincidentally is the only AI feature that stays ON even if you disable Apple Intelligence. I also think Genmoji is cute, though I haven't actually used it in a conversation, but it's dumb and cute, I might.

Is this really all there is so far?

If this is the state of things at 18.2...should I just turn off Apple Intelligence? Does anyone know if it saves battery, or RAM? It seems like it must.

I might even turn it back on later, but we're so far from it actually being...forget revolutionary, it's far from being even relevant. I could just live without it.

Is anyone doing this? Has anyone technically inclined analyzed what RAM/power/bandwidth Apple Intelligence uses, and if our devices run better with it off?

I expected AI to be full of hype, but I have to admit it is so much less than I thought it would be...and honestly, I thought my expectations were quite low key!

 

[BigBlur]

All the email features are off—the summaries were often wrong, as are the classifications on the phone.

By classifications, are you referring to the email categories? That has nothing to do with Apple Intelligence. It's available for all iPhones that support iOS 18.

The 'new' Siri is the same as the old Siri with different visual effects. I have a 16 PM but I have never needed to have it use visual intelligence.

New Siri is not the same as old Siri. While she may still be dumb in some areas, new Siri can do things old Siri cannot. (Personal context understanding, in-app actions, onscreen awareness, more resilient request handling, conversational context, product knowledge, more natural voice, more visually rich responses, ChatGPT integration, etc.) See pages 3 and 4 of this document for more info.

If this is the state of things at 18.2...should I just turn off Apple Intelligence? Does anyone know if it saves battery, or RAM? It seems like it must.

Personally, I haven't noticed any difference. As someone who isn't on my phone constantly, my iPhone 16 has been going 2-3 days between charges before 18.1 (no Apple Intelligence) and still going 2-3 days between charges after 18.1/18.2 (Apple Intelligence turned on).

If you do use the Apple Intelligence features frequently, such as generating images and rewriting things...then yeah, it'll probably use more RAM and drain your battery quicker; but I don't think there would be much difference in turning it off vs. leaving it on and not using those features if you don't need to. It's not like it's running in the background doing stuff 24/7. It only does the AI stuff when you tell it to (i.e. generating an image, rewriting or summarizing something, etc.).

 

[TheWraith]

New Siri is not the same as old Siri. While she may still be dumb in some areas, new Siri can do things old Siri cannot. (Personal context understanding, in-app actions, onscreen awareness, more resilient request handling, conversational context, product knowledge, more natural voice, more visually rich responses, ChatGPT integration, etc.) See pages 3 and 4 of this document for more info.

That's interesting. In practice over the last 2 months I haven't seen any improvement, though I am used to Siri being a dumbass, so I don't push any of the boundaries.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Just my opinion, but out of all these updates to iOS 18, which have been handled disastrously by Apple, drip feeding them over month after month after month, the so-called new improved personal Siri which we should get in March next year is what I am looking forward to the most. Far out weighing any of this AI stuff that we now have which to me is just novelty fodder, it will be interesting to see what Siri 2.0 is like.

I am always very pessimistic when it comes to things like this, but I don’t hold out a massive amount of hope. I don’t see it being any more reliable than the current version, whilst it might be able to do more. I would really like to be proven wrong though.

 

[Expos of 1969]

Just my opinion, but out of all these updates to iOS 18, which have been handled disastrously by Apple, drip feeding them over month after month after month, the so-called new improved personal Siri which we should get in March next year is what I am looking forward to the most. Far out weighing any of this AI stuff that we now have which to me is just novelty fodder, it will be interesting to see what Siri 2.0 is like.

I am always very pessimistic when it comes to things like this, but I don’t hold out a massive amount of hope. I don’t see it being any more reliable than the current version, whilst it might be able to do more. I would really like to be proven wrong though.

I share your desire for a much improved Siri and I also share your pessimism. Let's hope we are wrong.

 

[TheWraith]

So is the above poster wrong? Is Siri itself any different yet? I, too, thought it was changing with 18.4, which is probably March, and some kind of rumored revamp presumably in iOS 19.

Aside from a new graphic when it activates and being able to type, and able to handoff to ChatGPT, it seems pretty identical to me.

FWIW it was a real question—I haven't turned it off yet, but I honestly don't know why I am leaving it on to be honest.

 

[adrianlondon]

My phone doesn't support it.

My new laptop does, and when I was installing MacOS it asked me if I wanted to activate it, and gave me a list of things it could do. I decided I didn't care about any of its current capabilities so left it disabled. As it gets more useful, I may turn it on.

I'm not against it, or AI in general, it's just of no use to me on MacOS (or iOS) at the moment.

 

[StumpyBloke]

So is the above poster wrong? Is Siri itself any different yet? I, too, thought it was changing with 18.4, which is probably March, and some kind of rumored revamp presumably in iOS 19.

Aside from a new graphic when it activates and being able to type, and able to handoff to ChatGPT, it seems pretty identical to me.

FWIW it was a real question—I haven't turned it off yet, but I honestly don't know why I am leaving it on to be honest.

Siri has not changed. It is the still same dumb as a rock it’s always been. Only the interface has changed. Obviously crApple are always making small server-side changes for better or, more likely, worse though.

New Siri will be released next year around March apparently.

 

[BigBlur]

Siri has already received some of the updates, we just don't have all them yet. Try the following examples in old and new Siri...you'll see there's a difference.

Product Knowledge:
"How do I send a scheduled message?"
Old Siri will just say you can do it by using Send Later in Messages. (Or finds something on the web, depending on the question asked.)
New Siri will give you step-by-step directions.

More resilient request handling:
"Set a timer for 10 minutes." *Siri sets timer* "Actually, make that 5."
In my case, old Siri ends up setting it for 5 hours instead of 5 minutes...and if I just say "Make that 5", then it's something random, like 2 hours and 45 seconds.
New Siri gets it right both ways.

Maintains conversational context:
"When is [favorite sports team] playing next?" *Siri responds* "Add that to my calendar."
Old Siri already forgot what you were talking about. She asks what to call it and when to schedule it.
New Siri adds it to the calendar right away.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

My thoughts;

- Email categorisation is only useful if you receive (and don’t frequently open) lots of emails. Personally, I don’t think it’s useful for the average user who, say, operates work email on a separate account.

- Genmoji is a gimmick that wears off after about 10 mins, once the initial “ha” has worn off. Utterly time wasting when all the emoji you need to portray an emotion have, miraculously, been designed previously.

- Image Playground is just as, if not harder, to use than other image creators in representing a specific description. Apple’s marketing is clearly at play here; I haven’t found it easy at all to get the images that I wish when creating Pages docs. It can’t even form a four legged table correctly without messing up some aspect of the perspective.

- Summarised notifications are only useful for notifications that exceed the banner size, such as long emails. In which case, their accuracy from my experience is hit and miss and simply not worth the hassle of having to open the email just to decipher the summary.

- Writing tools are limited in usefulness, because when I write in a particular tone I don’t have any intention of changing it by the end often the document. The summary feature is interesting and will be useful in very specific scenarios. It works well.

In short, not particularly useful for me and I’m glad I turned it off. I feel like I have my devices back.

 

[Frankied22]

I turned it all off. The only thing I was somewhat curious about was genmoji because I thought it was a good use of the generative AI slop and could fit aesthetically with how playful emojis look. Turns out it sucks and I find it useless. The rest of the “Apple Intelligence” features are also useless, because I have a functioning brain. I’d rather have the better battery life.

 

[I7guy]

I overall like the summaries and grnmojis and can see where this can be useful as the functionality gets refined.

 

[xxFoxtail]

Is it possible to turn off the Notification summaries but keep the writing tools on?