I updated to iPadOS 18.1 for the Developer Beta. The Public Beta of iPadOS 18 is also available now; not sure how long it’s been around. Are any of you guys trying it out? I was looking for some information on Apple Intelligence. But it’s disappeared now. Basically, it was saying that the feature is not yet available if you’re in Europe or China. It also won’t work with UK English. So, with that out of the way, let’s turn on the feature and see what we have.
Privacy settings
I really hate how we have to manually turn off Siri for each app in iPadOS 18. This is such a huge inconvenience for those of us who care about our privacy. Apple should turn all of these off by default and then ask us for permission whenever we need the feature. I have so many apps, and doing this for each is just one massive pain!
Writing tools
My first stop was Apple Notes, naturally. What can we do in the app now? Proofreading automatically corrects your writing, which is brilliant despite my initial scepticism. It’s great for both simple and technical writing. Technical writing was my biggest worry when I first tried it out. I haven’t had the best experience with proofreading tools these past couple of years. Proofreading in iPadOS 18.1 is the reverse of what we’re used to, but it pretty much works the same. You get to go through each correction that the tool has already implemented. You’ll just go through your writing quickly to make sure that there aren’t any errors or changes you want to undo. So that is great, and the feature is quite accurate, so I might have to cancel my Grammarly subscription. Happy to.
But before I could do that, I had to test how good the AI is with technical writing. Our user guides, especially, don’t follow your typical grammar rules because of the amount of technical terms they contain. I noticed that writing tools were also available in Safari, so that’s really exciting. I wish the writing tools were available on the main top toolbar. It’ll be easier to work with from there.
Cancelling Grammarly
The tool made five changes, which is promising. This is the best technical writing proofreading I have encountered so far. Before I continue with this review, let me see if I can cancel my Grammarly subscription. I recently paid for a year of Grammarly, so I’ll see if I can get a refund. And, as usual, they’ve made it super difficult. But they were quick to respond, like lightning fast. Because I took a break for brunch, and they had already responded and issued a refund. Best customer care I have received in a while. I was happy I got to save some money, but also sad because they were just lovely. That makes it the 6th time I have cancelled Grammarly in the last 30 days, but that is a story for another video.
The results I got were very impressive for a beta tool. It’s definitely going to change how we work on our devices. But, I became curious to check if this tool worked offline. So I went to check the settings. There are no settings for this, so it’s working on the device? It sounds too good to be true. I will have to check it offline for a more extensive evaluation. You can share feedback to help train generative models. I will do no such thing. You guys know how I feel about generative AI.
Rewriting and summarising
Rewriting would be more useful if we can compare the new text to the old one. The app kept the formatting and at a glance, the format and structure of the writing is still the same, so I really like that. You can use three different tones for your rewrite: friendly or professional, and you can make it concise.
The setup we have for the summary is what I was expecting for the grammar correction, where we get a preview of the suggested changes, and we can decide what we want with them. The summary can either be a simple paragraph or a bulleted one. You can choose to replace everything in your notes, or you can copy and paste it. Apple Notes can also convert your notes to lists or tables. I was unable to convert it to a table, and I really wanted to see that one. I guess we still have to wait a bit longer.
Audio transcription
Transcription is working, and it is very accurate and super fast. In real time, almost. It is amazing! I hope you guys are starting to understand and appreciate why I moved to Apple Notes for all my note-taking needs. This is simply fantastic! You can add the transcript to your notes, not sure what happened there, but let’s try again. Not what I am expecting, so perhaps I should just copy and paste it instead. It could use some simple punctuation, like full stops and commas. But other than that, this can actually work, of course once it’s been polished. You can even search the transcription. If that is not brilliant, I don’t know what is. So far, what do you like more: the grammar checker or transcription? Do tell.
What’s missing?
I was curious to see how Genmoji would improve my terrible drawings, but we still have to wait a while for that. There is still a lot missing from Apple Intelligence. But, maybe some of them I have decided not to test them. I will spend a couple of days turning off Siri for all my apps because I have decided that I won’t be trying it on the iPad, maybe on the phone and Mac. We’ll see. The next thing I wanted to test is whether or not the writing tools work offline. So, I turned off my Wifi and I was very happy to see that it does work offline. That is great news, definitely a better setup than what I had in Grammarly. I noticed that when proofreading, we can’t use the keyboard, though. That is quite limiting, I’ll wait and see what the final feature would be like. I’d also love to see better tracking for the changes we’ve made.
Final thoughts
What are you excited to try out with Apple Intelligence? I think I am excited to have the proofreading feature, and also the image generation one. Those are things I can’t do myself, so I will definitely use the AI to help with that. I can’t draw to save my life, and I need someone to proofread our user guides and reviews. So, I appreciate AI that can help me with that. Since I have discontinued my Grammarly subscription, I had to update my macOS because I need proofreading for work.
For things I already know how to do, though, I am not sure how much faster the AI will be. Even for things I can learn. It feels like asking a child to do something for you. You don’t give them chores because they are helpful, but as part of their training to become functional adults. I think that’s where we are with AI, and I don’t have the patience to train AI models. I’ll work with them when they are fully functional. What are your thoughts on that?
