• Following a detailed assessment of Apple Intelligence’s productivity tools, we now turn our attention to the fun side of the AI system with Image Playground, Gemoji and the Photo Clean Up tool.

• These tools let you generate images and stickers using text descriptions, and are accessible across compatible iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

• In the Notes app on iPhones and Macs, there is also a new Magic Wand tool that uses GenAI to convert your rough sketches into art.

In Part 1 of our Apple Intelligence review, we covered the productivity side, including Writing Tools, Summarization and Notification Management. In Part 2, we are taking a closer look at Generative AI (GenAI)-based creativity tools, Image Playground and Genmoji, that are directly integrated into the OS and across various apps. These tools are designed to make communication more visually engaging and personalized, and they work on-device. In this review, we will also talk about the Clean Up tool that can remove distractions and unwanted objects from photos.

Image Playground: Fun meets creativity, generates images from text prompt

Image Playground is Apple’s take on stable diffusion for text-to-image generation. The beauty here is that it allows your imagination run wild and create images with simple descriptions. From flying cars to flying fish, or a shark riding a bicycle or an octopus wearing sunglasses, the possibilities are endless.

The app also offers suggestions in the form of themes, like parties, fireworks, and birthdays, to name a few. Other suggestions include costumes, accessories, and places. For instance, you can have a text prompt like “octopus with sunglasses”, and then you can add a theme as well, like space, and add another prompt like “astronaut”, which will add a space suit on it.

You can also choose a photo from your gallery and create a new image in three different styles such as animation, illustration and sketch. You can then add themes, like superhero, robot, astronaut and so on. You can also add a description like add a hat, sunglasses and more.

Now, the beauty of Image Playground is that it is deeply integrated with Apple’s first-party apps like iMessage, Notes, Keynote, and others. This allows the user to add a new dimension to the conversation by sharing created content with others. This also eliminates the need to jump between different apps or rely on third-party services for image generation.

However, there is a catch. As we discussed in our review in Part 1, there is no integration with third-party apps like Messenger, WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams and so on. Users have to use the Image Playground app to generate an image, then save it to the gallery and then send them to contacts on these third-party apps. Secondly, Image Playground only allows you to generate basic images. ChatGPT, Gemini and CoPilot allow for more complex prompts for image generation. For instance, this prompt was unable to process the prompt “generate an image of a girl in her 30s standing on a beach next to her boat and a beach bungalow in background”. Lastly, the AI also sometimes struggles with details and does not produce images like dedicated AI image-generation platforms.

Apple’s on-device processing ensures a good balance of speed and privacy, but it cannot generate more complex, photorealistic images like other AI image generators.

Genmoji: Create personalized emojis on the go

Emojis are one of the best ways to react and express your emotions in a conversation. With every iOS update, Apple keeps adding new emojis, but now in the generative AI era, personalization takes a step further with Genmoji. It allows you to create custom emojis based on your text descriptions. These are not simply modified versions of the existing emojis – they are entirely new creations.

From a “DJ cat wearing headphones and spinning disk” to “a donut with wings” to “tiger meditating on yoga mat” and “a surprised mango,” we tried a bunch of descriptions, and were able to create Genmoji with ease. The results were creative and accurate almost every time. Genmojis are created on-device.

You can also choose a photo from your camera gallery and create those personalized emojis with the person’s face. As Genmoji is integrated into the keyboard, it works across all apps, even on Meta apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and more. To create one, head over to the text field in any app then tap on the emoji icon on the bottom left of the keyboard. Finally, select the Genmoji icon next to the search option.

The ability to generate fun and creative emojis using Genmoji adds a unique touch to communication.

Image Wand: Turn your rough sketches into polished art

Powered by Apple Intelligence, Image Wand is a powerful tool that lets you transform your rough sketches into polished art within the Notes app. It works best with an iPad using the Apple Pencil but also works well on Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhones where you can scribble and draw rough sketches using your fingers.

To use Image Wand, head over to the Notes app > Tap on the Markup icon (pencil icon) > Select the Pen and then draw something. Once you are done scribbling, tap on the Image Wand icon (sixth from the left) > circle on your rough sketch and then describe your image. You can also circle with the Image Wand in an empty space and then describe your image.

Once the image is generated, you can add more prompts to add or remove something from the background. We created two images, one with a rough doodle of a rocket, and the other in an empty space with the prompt – “a cat and dog enjoying the rain.” We added more descriptions like “blue skies and sunshine” to the rocket image, and “river and mountains” to the cat and dog image. These generated images can be saved in your gallery app and then shared across other apps. Similar to Genmoji and Image Playground, the Image Wand also works on-device.

Image Wand is a good tool for visual thinkers to make their rough sketches more presentable.

Clean Up Tool: Removes distractions from your photos, but struggles with complex textures

From photobombers to unsightly trash, and more, the Clean Up tool aims to remove all those unwanted objects and distractions from your photos. It can also remove vehicles, lens flare and other random objects from your photos. Using generative AI, it can analyze the surroundings in a scene and intelligently generate new pixels to fill in the space from where the object is removed. The end result aims to make it look like the unwanted object never existed.

To use the tool, open the Photos app > select the photo you want to edit > tap on edit > Clean Up. The tool will then analyze the photo and suggest objects to remove. You can simply tap on them, or circle on the object you want to remove.

The Clean Up tool does a good job in removing some distractions with consistent background and textures neatly. However, it does struggle with complex backgrounds resulting in imperfect and blurry fills. This is an area where competitors Samsung, OPPO and others do a better job as they leverage hybrid cloud-based approach for complex generative fills, whereas Apple does it on-device.

Apple’s Clean Up tool does a good job in most scenarios with on-device processing, but how it matches with cloud-based competitors processing remains to be seen.

For those concerned about privacy when sharing photos, the Clean Up tool also has a hidden superpower. Using the Clean Up tool and brush to circle over a person’s face, Apple Intelligence will interpret your request to protect the identity of the person, and it will pixelate the face, instead of completely removing it. At the bottom, it will also prompt a message saying, "Identity protection applied".

Final Thoughts

• Image Playground and Genmoji showcase Apple’s commitment to integrating AI-powered creativity to enhance the user experience.

• While Genmoji works across third-party apps as it is integrated into the keyboard, the potential for integrating Image Playground with third-party apps could further enhance its utility.

• Apple’s commitment for on-device processing is good from a privacy and data security point of view, but the challenge will be to see how it can match or surpass cloud-based processing of competitor GenAI tools.

• At WWDC, all eyes will be on how Apple plans to further improve these GenAI apps to make them more reliable and with more feature additions.

• The implementation of creative features like Genmoji and Image Playground highlights the balancing act that Apple is trying to accomplish – enabling GenAI features, while remaining consistent with its promise to present an optimized user experience.

• To deliver on its brand promise, Apple is focusing on on-device AI features – allowing the company to control the user experience. However, the focus on on-device and privacy limits each feature. Other solutions can utilize multi-modal prompts and can generate content using more complex prompts.

• Apple is likely to introduce enhancements for its on-device Intelligence at the WWDC. The company is also likely to rely on additional partnerships or a tighter integration with existing partners (mainly OpenAI) to add flexibility and more advanced capabilities to its platform.

• A key advantage Apple has, thanks to its control over hardware and software, is the ability to integrate AI into the platform. Instead of users finding third-party apps and services, Apple blends them further to the iOS ecosystem by making them third-party compatible. It will be critical for Apple to continue this strategy by further fusing AI features across apps, while at the same time working to enhance its models to allow greater flexibility.

• Apple will also continue to rely on curated partners to fill specific capability gaps to remain level with the competition.