These iOS 26 Apps Are Using Apple Intelligence to Power New Features

[MacRumors]

Starting with iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26, Apple provides app developers with access to a new Foundation Models framework that allows their apps to tap into the on-device large language model at the core of Apple Intelligence.

Apple today highlighted some of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps utilizing the Foundation Models framework to power new features and capabilities.

For example, in the fitness app SmartGym, users can now describe a workout and turn it into a structured routine with sets, reps, rest times, and equipment adaptation. SmartGym also generates insightful summaries of workout data, and more.

In the journaling app Stoic, users can now receive contextual journaling prompts that are generated from their recent entries, and there are other new features.

SwingVision, an app that helps users with their tennis or pickleball skills, uses the framework to generate advice for players to improve their game.

Foundation Models powers new Listen Mode and Scan Mode options in the to-do app Stuff.

The task management app OmniFocus 4 can now generate projects and next steps on a user's behalf, such as helping them know what to pack for an upcoming trip.

Apple's press release highlights many other apps using the framework.

Article Link: These iOS 26 Apps Are Using Apple Intelligence to Power New Features

 

[What_Is_George]

Really love SmartGym, some features are gimmicky but overall the best gym app I have used

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

In the journaling app Stoic, users can now receive contextual journaling prompts that are generated from their recent entries, and there are other new features.

I don’t see what’s smart about that, it’s just connecting dots. The whole point of a journal is to be in the present, not to write based on common patterns of usage.

 

[con2apple]

Let me put it in a particularly cynical way:

Fitness app
Quick question: if you have not even have an idea or desire to create a routine, will you ever exercise at all?
So you might as well throw the app away right now.

Journal app
So you let the app write your Journal based on the last few days. I see. If your life is so dull and uneventful that you can write the same thing every day, why bother?
And if something great actually happened, but you don't feel like writing it down, why use a Journal app?
So you'd better throw the app away right away.

Conclusion
In two out of three cases, you should delete the app if you think you want to use AI.

 

[Nozgog]

I don’t notice any difference with SwingVision on iOS 26 ….

 

[turbineseaplane]

The gym one I will go with you on

The rest of it is a bunch of nonsense.

What we are seeing here is a whole bunch of solutions trying to find a problem.

 

[What_Is_George]

Fitness app
Quick question: if you have not even have an idea or desire to create a routine, will you ever exercise at all?
So you might as well throw the app away right now.

This article just talks about the recent update to the app that adds some ai features. I have used the app for a while before it because I found myself falling into too much of a routine where I was doing the same exercises. This app makes me switch some up, do a different workout when a machine is busy and keeps track of what weights I do what at. Some of the ai features are really gimmicky and more to get people started, but if it works for some people it works for them to get healthy and stay active.

 

[jimscard]

Other apps using Apple Intelligence:

• CARROT - Chat with the weird and snarky app about the weather.
• Agenda - Chat with Agenda about your notes
• Tripit - Use Apple Intelligence to reprocess emails with plans in them that Tripit doesn't have templates for. For folks who travel a lot, this is a big deal. For example, while sending, e.g., airline confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com usually work - because TripIt has pre-programmed templates for the airlines, sending event tickets or car service confirmations usually end up in the 'unfiled' box, requiring you to manually add them to your trip plan. Now, AI does that for you. This is also the first really good example I've found of how Apple Intelligence enables scenarios that don't involve chatbots, and that contain information you'd really rather stay private.

 

[jimscard]

Let me put it in a particularly cynical way:

Fitness app
Quick question: if you have not even have an idea or desire to create a routine, will you ever exercise at all?
So you might as well throw the app away right now.

Journal app
So you let the app write your Journal based on the last few days. I see. If your life is so dull and uneventful that you can write the same thing every day, why bother?
And if something great actually happened, but you don't feel like writing it down, why use a Journal app?
So you'd better throw the app away right away.

Conclusion
In two out of three cases, you should delete the app if you think you want to use AI

Certainly cynical, that's for sure. Not really accurate though. I haven't seen these particular apps' implementations, but I have seen others that use Apple Intelligence, and your take is pretty off base. Here's why:

Fitness app -- what makes you think the average person has any idea of how to create an exercise routine? Or what would be the best one for them to do to achieve a particular goal? If it was as easy as you seem to think, there wouldn't be professional fitness coaches designing exercise programs for people. I'd venture that the bigger problem with exercise are the things that stop people from starting in the first place. Things like being embarrassed, or feeling like you're too dumb to ask an expert to come up with a plan for you -- or not being able to afford a gym membership or trainer fees. Adding Apple Intelligence driven features to a fitness app removes those barriers, bringing the benefits of personal training to everyone.

Journaling -- while I haven't used the one mentioned, I have used the Apple Intelligence-based features in Day One Journal's beta versions. Like the one mentioned in the article, AI is used to generate *prompts* for the user. Not journal entries - Prompts. You know what keeps people from journaling? Not knowing what to write. What better way of stimulating someone's creativity, and getting them into Journaling than having a journal that asks you questions / gives you ideas on what to write based on what you've written so far, along with a knowledge of where you've been, what pictures you took, who you had meetings with, etc.?

One of the really sad things going on in this industry and I think society in general, is that companies like OpenAI, Google and Microsoft, along with industry analysts like Gurman et. al., have sold people on the idea that artificial intelligence is all about having a chatbot to talk to and to do your work for you. While that vision might be great for science fiction movies, it's neither useful nor practical. That's why Apple hasn't followed the same path as these other companies, chasing the mythical AGI. Instead, Apple has been building a platform that enables developers to enable actually useful capabilities in their apps that help people, democratizing access to knowledge and help in ways that were never possible before.

 

[GermanSuplex]

Apple Intelligence feels incredibly boring. For me, mostly a souped-up word processor.

 

[svish]

Very slow start. Over the years maybe more apps will be using it. Waiting to see how Apple will improve Apple Intelligence.

 

[H_D]

Making Applications more intelligent and personal is a good usage of AI. As a years-long user of Stoic as a companion to DayOne, the personae still feel a bit wooden and repetitive but – as even the hypersimple ELIZA did – the Q&A deepens the experience and self-reflection, even if, e.g. ChatGPT is much more adept in this kind of dialogue-based self-analysis. But it helps the Apps to work on device and they will grow as Apple Intelligence (hopefully) does. I look forward to having something akin to the «magical» self-organizing time-blocking and task-organizing of FlowSavvy or Motion, but with Apple Calendar/Reminders. And so on. Apps that understand your music taste better, a Fitness / dietary App that gets you a bit better or tracks food more easily. Lots of potential, especially with the benefits of the united ecosphere Apple delivers.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Making Applications more intelligent and personal is a good usage of AI. As a years-long user of Stoic as a companion to DayOne, the personae still feel a bit wooden and repetitive but – as even the hypersimple ELIZA did – the Q&A deepens the experience and self-reflection, even if, e.g. ChatGPT is much more adept in this kind of dialogue-based self-analysis. But it helps the Apps to work on device and they will grow as Apple Intelligence (hopefully) does. I look forward to having something akin to the «magical» self-organizing time-blocking and task-organizing of FlowSavvy or Motion, but with Apple Calendar/Reminders. And so on. Apps that understand your music taste better, a Fitness / dietary App that gets you a bit better or tracks food more easily. Lots of potential, especially with the benefits of the united ecosphere Apple delivers.

I've read this three times now and I'm still honestly confused.