Member-only story

Apple Intelligence Review: A Victim of Marketing

Well… here we go.

Mark Ellis
Mac O’Clock
11 min readJan 3, 2025

--

Mark Ellis pointing his thumb at Apple Intelligence generated genmojis
Image courtesy of author

I decided to wait until the official December 2024 UK launch before trying out Apple Intelligence.

I was, ironically, in Dubai when iOS 18.2 dropped, but I dutifully installed it on my iPhone 16 Pro Max daily driver and cocked a wry smile when I discovered that you subsequently had to download and install Apple Intelligence separately.

I don’t know why that amused me, but it did.

Ask anyone who has used Apple Intelligence and they’ll tell you that it is either vastly underwhelming or that they spent most of the time trying — and eventually failing — to actually find it.

This begs a big question: is Apple Intelligence a total waste of time? Well, I tried out the key features in the latest public release of iOS to find out — and came to a startling conclusion.

Genmoji

Apple describes Genmoji as a “custom emoji” which you can create to “fit any moment”. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help ancient people like myself fathom what on earth it’s actually for.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m partial to slapping an emoji or two into a message these days (I’ve even done it in emails 😬), but I invariably reach for the thumbs-up or clinking beer glasses every time. I rarely…

--

--

Mac O’Clock
Mac O’Clock

Published in Mac O’Clock

The best stories for Apple owners and enthusiasts

Mark Ellis
Mark Ellis

Written by Mark Ellis

Tech reviewer. Join my newsletter list for a weekly behind-the-scenes video of a tech content creator! ⬇️ https://markellisreviews.ck.page/newsletter

Responses (14)