Apple Intelligence has one feature that's actually useful

Key Takeaways

2024 is arguably a pivotal year for AI, with major companies fully embracing the emerging technology.
Apple has entered the fray with its Apple Intelligence suite of AI features, but not every addition has impressed me.
iOS 18.1’s Clean Up, however, is the first AI tool that has truly impacted my workflow.

In many ways, 2024 will go down as a pivotal year for all-things artificial intelligence. Just about every major tech company under the sun is currently riding the AI hype train, including Google, Microsoft, Meta, Samsung, and so many others. Most recently, we’ve seen Apple make its big AI debut, heavily marketing its new generative technologies under the banner of Apple Intelligence.

Apple’s AI endeavors are multipronged, with new features slated to roll out over the course of several months. In fact, some Apple Intelligence functionalities might not arrive until spring 2025. That being said, the company has released its first set of AI goodies to the public in the form of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS 15.1 Sequoia.

Admittedly, I haven’t been all that impressed by most of these early Apple Intelligence features. Writing tools, which allow you to rewrite, proofread, and summarize text, don’t stand out in a post-Grammarly world. The natural and conversational Siri update is nice to have, but it’s a case of Apple simply playing catch up in the digital assistant space. As for the improved natural language search and Memories features, they sound compelling on the surface, but I’m too busy acclimating myself with iOS 18’s radical Photos app redesign to truly notice or care.

These 5 iOS 18.2 features make me genuinely excited for Apple Intelligence

iOS 18.2 is expected to land in a few short weeks — here are the features that have me excited to update my iPhone on day one.

Without a doubt, iOS 18.1’s killer app is Clean Up

Apple / Pocket-lint

If there’s one single Apple Intelligence feature that I’ve been genuinely enjoying thus far, it’s the company’s new Clean Up tool. In short, Clean Up allows you to circle or scribble over top of images in your camera roll, to remove unwanted background elements and distractions. The feature also works well as a powered-up spot fix tool, which makes it easy to erase blemishes or other photographic imperfections.

As someone who often struggles to compose the perfect shot, Clean Up is a genuine productivity boon. My daily workflow often involves taking photos of smartphones and other consumer tech products, and Clean Up’s ability to remove micro-scratches, fingerprints, and pesky dust particles is game-changing. Of course, it has always been possible to edit out these sorts of imperfections with photo editing software, but it’s the ease of use here that makes all the difference.

As someone who often struggles to compose the perfect shot, Clean Up is a genuine productivity boon.

Clean Up’s ability to remove unwanted background elements from my photo library is equally useful. I have a large back catalog of images with relatively well composed foreground elements, sabotaged by background clutter that detracts from the overall image. I’ve since synced these images up with my iPhone, and breathed new life into them with the magic of generative erase and fill.

The first Apple Intelligence features are here, but what do they actually do?

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Clean Up is far from novel, but that doesn’t take away from its utility

I’m just glad Magic Eraser is finally available (natively) on iPhone

Removing object using Clean Up tool in iOS 18 on colored background

Of course, much like with the rest of these first-wave Apple Intelligence features, Clean Up isn’t revolutionary — Google introduced a similar feature called Magic Eraser back in 2021, and even brought the tech to the iPhone via a Google Photos update in 2023. Rather, it’s the friction-free, native experience of Clean Up that makes it a joy to use on my iPhone.

Even if the idea isn’t exactly original, Apple’s decision to bring a generative erase tool to its handsets is a utilitarian choice I can get behind, AI-driven or otherwise. I’m far from convinced that AI is the sort of paradigm-shifting technology that the industry’s giants want us to believe it is. In my opinion, most of the consumer-facing AI tools currently on offer fall squarely into party gimmick territory.

Even if the idea isn’t exactly original, Apple’s decision to bring a generative erase tool to its handsets is a utilitarian choice I can get behind, AI-driven or otherwise.

In my estimation, Clean Up is currently the one big exception — it leverages AI in a way that genuinely improves my workflow, and makes an otherwise time-consuming task something that takes mere seconds to perform. Google hit the nail on the AI head when it launched Magic Eraser, and I’m happy that iPhones have now adopted the feature: better late than never, as they say.