Sometimes, like goes the way that you want, other times it does not. Over the last month or so, you may have noticed some changes to the site. In the coming days you are likely to see some changes in my apps as well. The reason for this is quite simple, I am in the process of winding down my side business. I stated the following in my latest book:

As this is the 25th review I have written, it will be my last one. This is not a decision that I came to lightly and there is some rationale behind the decision. Looking back at my book sales over the course of the last 13 years, there have been ups and downs, as one might expect. However, over the last five years the sales trend has been in a downward trend, a significant one. If sales were about the same for each year, it might be different, but the amount of work that goes into research and writing just are not worth the investment given the lackluster sales.

While I sold a few more books this September than last September, the proceeds were about the same. As mentioned above, the declining sales is a motivating factor. To re-iterate, there will be no book next year. My existing books will continue to be sold, but I will not be writing any new ones. Besides the lackluster sales, the motivation to write another book is not there. This was not a decision that was made recently, but has been something I have been thinking about for the last couple of years, and I have finally made a determination.

I will still continue to write articles on my website, because why would I not. I do not have any particular changes in terms of the articles that I will write, but there will be other changes to the website.

Website Changes

One of the ways that I attempted to monetize the website has been with ads. These are first-party ads, meaning ones that I have created, and host, and none of the data is ever given to third-parties, unless you clicked on one of the ads, at which point they would track the fact that you clicked on it. The links in the ads are affiliate links, meaning that I get a bit of a commission. This has not worked all that well. In the six years that I have been participating in the program, I have earned less than $175. I have been participating in Amazon’s affiliate program since 2015 and I haven’t gotten a single commission in all that time.

Since the affiliate links have not provided much of a commission, I opted to remove them. If you look at the top of the page, you will notice that they have already been removed. The website is just one of the places seeing changes and it is not the only place where there are ads.

App Changes

The way that the apps have been monetized has changed significantly in 14 years of existence. When the App Store began paid upfront apps were common. However, over time, a freemium model became more prevalent. In case you are not aware, a “freemium” model is where you provide a basic set of features for free, but additional ones are available through in-app purchase. This approach is appropriate for many types of apps. Even more commonplace these days is a subscription. While some may balk at a subscription, it does provide ongoing revenue that supports continued development of the app. A subscription was never something that made sense for my app.

My app, wwriteLite uses a freemium model, that is both ad-supported, like my website, as well as providing some in-app purchases. The in-app purchases are to remove ads as well as for a couple of different icon packs. In the 14.5 year lifetime of the various versions of the app, it has generated less than $500 in that entire time, therefore it is not really a viable side business.

Given that the ads are not working within the app, they have also been removed. There are also some other changes that I made within the app, but it is definitely be moved into a hobby project, more so than it already was. The other changes have been outlined in another post.

Final Thoughts

Even after making a sincere attempt to have my books, app, and website be a profitable side job, it ultimately did not pan out. It is not like I have a ton of app ideas. If I did have a ton of ideas, I would have tried them to see if any of them stuck. Alas, I do not have any good ideas. Instead, I am shutting down my entire side business. If I have any good ideas in the future.

I will continue to write on my site, mostly likely continuing to write about Apple, but there may be additional changes there as well. What those changes might be, I am not sure yet, but stay tuned.

I would like to thank anybody who has clicked on an ad on the site, and purchased something

Today I have released an update for my app wwriteLite. This is a small update.

Tweaks

• Removes Ads
• Removes In-App Purchases, all app icons are now free
• Removes "Writing Prompts" and "One Word Prompts".
• Removes Prompt widgets
• Requires iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, or macOS 15.2.

You can download the update for free using the App Store on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. If you have not yet downloaded the app, it is a free app and available on the App Store. You can view additional information on the app's website.

Apple has gotten into what society is calling "Artificial Intelligence", or "AI", except they have put their own spin on the term. One of Apple’s core tenets is protecting user privacy, and they attempt to do so whenever possible. In order to accomplish this, Apple attempts to protect user privacy through a combination of performing as many requests on the device as possible. However, for advanced requests that may not always be possible. For those requests there is a feature called Private Cloud Compute. Private Cloud Compute is a set of servers run by Apple that are capable of handling your request, providing the result, and then the server is completely erased. If you need more details, be sure to check out the post that is the Introduction to Apple Intelligence.

Apple is releasing the Apple Intelligence features in batches. The first set of features released were done so in iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. This set included "Typing with Siri", "Summarization and Mail", and "Writing Tools". The second set of Apple Intelligence features are being released with iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2. There are four new features for this batch. This article will cover integration with "ChatGPT".

Apple Intelligence is designed to work with your personal data. This is all well and good, but sometimes you might need to know about more than just your personal context. In these cases, you may need some more worldly context, and this is where ChatGPT can be useful.

iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 can all integrate Siri with ChatGPT in order to be able to ask about information that Siri does not have any idea about. You will need to enable ChatGPT; more on that in a moment. Before we dive into that, let us talk about privacy.

Privacy

It seems like every company today wants to gather as much information about you as possible. This could be something somewhat innocuous like where your mouse is to something extremely personal, like search history, or even personally identifiable information. With ChatGPT on iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia, you are in full control in two ways.

The first way is that you will need to confirm each time that you want to send a request to ChatGPT. This will only appear when you make a request that would warrant being sent to ChatGPT. This will need to be done for each request.

The second way is that you have an option of using a ChatGPT account. However, this is absolutely NOT required. If you do not have an account, all of your requests will be sent anonymously to the ChatGPT servers.

Enabling ChatGPT

If you want to enable ChatGPT, you can do so by using the following steps:

1. Open Settings.
2. Scroll down to "Apple Intelligence & Siri".
3. Tap, or click, on Apple Intelligence & Siri to open up the settings.
4. Under "Extensions" tap, or click, on ChatGPT.
5. Tap, or click, on "Setup" next to Use ChatGPT to begin the setup wizard. A popup will appear.
6. Tap on the "Next" button to continue. A "Privacy" explanation screen will appear.
7. On the "Privacy" screen, tap on the "Enable ChatGPT" button. The optional account screen will appear.
8. On the "Using ChatGPT with an Account" page, you can Sign In with your existing ChatGPT account, or you can click on the "Enable ChatGPT without an Account" button.

ChatGPT Requests

When you make a Siri request that Siri cannot handle itself, you will see a prompt similar to this:

When you click on the "Use ChatGPT" button, your request will be sent to ChatGPT, and the result will be shown as a standard Siri result, with the ChatGPT information at the bottom of the screen.

ChatGPT Account

With ChatGPT on iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2, you can use the ChatGPT features without signing in. When you do this, you will have a limited amount of usage of the advanced ChatGPT models. If you make additional requests, those requests will use more basic models.

Many people already have a ChatGPT account, and you can sign into that account. When you sign into an account, all of your request history will be saved. There are two types of ChatGPT accounts: a free account and a paid account.

If you do not have a paid ChatGPT account, you can actually upgrade to ChatGPT Plus right from within settings on iOS or iPadOS. To upgrade to ChatGPT Plus, perform the following steps:

1. Open Settings.
2. Scroll down to "Apple Intelligence & Siri".
3. Under Extensions, tap on "ChatGPT".
4. Tap on "Upgrade to ChatGPT Plus". A popup will appear.
5. Tap on the "Subscribe" button. An App Store popup will appear.
6. Tap on the App Store "Subscribe" button to confirm you want to subscribe.

Once you have subscribed, you can use the advanced features of ChatGPT. It should be noted that if you already have a subscription, it should be reflected as such when you sign into your account.

Closing Thoughts

Being able to use ChatGPT for requests that Siri cannot answer natively is a good addition. The fact that you can make a decision of whether or not to send a request to Siri is a great privacy benefit. Along with this, you can use ChatGPT without an account, which means that you can maintain your privacy or your request history, depending on your needs.

ChatGPT is currently the only service integrated with Siri, but it is likely that additional ones will be added in the future.

Be sure to check out all of the other articles in the Apple Intelligence series.

Apple has gotten into what society is calling "Artificial Intelligence", or "AI", except they have put their own spin on the term. One of Apple’s core tenets is protecting user privacy, and they attempt to do so whenever possible. In order to accomplish this, Apple attempts to protect user privacy through a combination of performing as many requests on the device as possible. However, for advanced requests that may not always be possible. For those requests there is a feature called Private Cloud Compute. Private Cloud Compute is a set of servers run by Apple that are capable of handling your request, providing the result, and then the server is completely erased. If you need more details, be sure to check out the post that is the Introduction to Apple Intelligence.

Apple is releasing the Apple Intelligence features in batches. The first set of features released were done so in iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. This set included "Typing with Siri", "Summarization and Mail", and "Writing Tools". The second set of Apple Intelligence features are being released with iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2. There are four new features for this batch. This article will cover “Genmoji”.

Everyone has a different set of talents. Some people can sing, others can entertain through comedy, yet others can write, and some can even draw. There are many who wish they could create works of art, and yet they cannot.

When Apple introduced Apple Intelligence, one of the features promoted was the ability to generate images. The way that this would be done is through a dedicated application called Image Playground. Sometimes you have an idea of the type of image that you want, but you have no idea how to get started. Image Playgrounds can help.

Image Playground is designed to allow you to generate an image based upon prompts that you give it. For example, you could describe something like “Show an Alien farming with a sci-fi theme”, or you could say “Corgi and a goat, kayak on a lake”, or even “Cow wearing a blue party hat”, or just about anything else you can think of, and it will be generated.

Communications

There are a variety of ways to communicate. This could be images, video, and even text. When you are communicating with someone via text, it can be difficult to accurately depict what you are trying to say, particularly if you have a limited number of characters. In those situations, you may want to communicate something in a succinct manner.

For text, it can be useful to add a bit of flair or even clarification with something called emoji. Emoji is a standard managed by the Unicode Consortium. As of this writing, there are 3,790 defined emoji characters. This does not include variations, like skin tones for people. Some of these emojis are things you might expect, like a heart, smiley faces, pizza, burger, book, and a giraffe, just to name a few. There are also some rather obscure ones, like Passport Control, Coral, Non-Potable water, and even a Pager.

While it is likely that you will find something that will work in your own situation, you may not be able to find just the right emoji. This is where Custom Emoji can be helpful. Apple calls this Genmoji.

Much like other Emoji-related items, like Memoji, Genmoji are generated emojis.

Generating Emoji

If you are not able to find just the right emoji that you need, you can now create one with Genmoji. To create an emoji, you can use the following steps:

1. Open the Emoji keyboard.
2. Start typing the emoji that you are looking for.
3. When the emoji is not found, tap on “Create new Emoji”. A popup will appear.

The generated Emoji will show a screen similar to that of Image Playground, where four possible versions will be generated. You can swipe between the variations and see which one is the one that you want to use. If you do not like the ones that have been generated, you can swipe to the right and additional versions will be created.

Once you have found one that works for what you want, you can then use it in the app of your choosing. In fact, the custom Emoji will be saved as a sticker that you can use throughout iOS, iPadOS, and macOS Sequoia, but they can only be created on iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2. When a custom emoji is saved, it will be created as a sticker and it is automatically synchronized across your devices.

Genmoji Details

Let us say that you have generated a custom emoji and have used it for a while, you may want to create something similar but may not remember the description that you used. You are in luck, you can actually view the details of the emoji by using the following steps:

1. Locate the custom emoji that you want to get details about.
2. Tap and hold, or right-mouse click, on the emoji. A menu will appear.
3. Tap on the “Details” menu item.

Once you tap on the “Details”, a popup will appear and it will provide you with the data used to create the emoji. The information is only the prompt used, but this may be enough for you to re-create, or create another version, of the custom emoji.

Custom Emoji Examples

Here are a few custom emojis that I have generated, including the text used to generate them.

Sparkle Face

Rainbow Colored Computer

Turquoise Computer

Closing Thoughts

Even though there are nearly 3,800 standard emojis, there are still a plethora of other emojis that one might want to use that are not available. This is where Genmoji can be useful. You can generate any number of new emojis that you want. Much like the Image Playground, you can describe the emoji that you are looking for, and one can be generated.

When you do generate an emoji, it will be saved and automatically synchronized across your devices running iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2. This means that you can use all of your emojis within many apps within the operating systems.

Be sure to check out all of the other articles in the Apple Intelligence series.

Apple has gotten into what society is calling "Artificial Intelligence", or "AI", except they have put their own spin on the term. One of Apple’s core tenets is protecting user privacy, and they attempt to do so whenever possible. In order to accomplish this, Apple attempts to protect user privacy through a combination of performing as many requests on the device as possible. However, for advanced requests that may not always be possible. For those requests there is a feature called Private Cloud Compute. Private Cloud Compute is a set of servers run by Apple that are capable of handling your request, providing the result, and then the server is completely erased. If you need more details, be sure to check out the post that is the Introduction to Apple Intelligence.

Apple is releasing the Apple Intelligence features in batches. The first set of features released were done so in iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. This set included "Typing with Siri", "Summarization and Mail", and "Writing Tools". The second set of Apple Intelligence features are being released with iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2. There are four new features for this batch. This article will cover a feature called "Image Playground".

Everyone has a different set of talents. Some people can sing, others can entertain through comedy, yet others can write, and some can even draw. There are many who wish they could create works of art, and yet they cannot.

When Apple introduced Apple Intelligence, one of the features promoted was the ability to generate images. The way that this would be done is through a dedicated application called Image Playground. Sometimes you have an idea of the type of image that you want, but you have no idea how to get started. Image Playgrounds can help.

Image Playground is designed to allow you to generate an image based upon prompts that you give it. For example, you could describe something like "Show an Alien farming with a sci-fi theme", or you could say "Corgi and a goat, kayak on a lake", or even "Cow wearing a blue party hat", or just about anything else you can think of, and it will be generated.

Generating Images

The way that you generate images is quite simple; you can use one of two approaches. The first is to add individual words to help describe what you are looking for. The second option is to use full sentences to indicate what you are looking for.

Once you have added your words or description, an image should be generated. You can add additional words to help refine the image that has been generated. In fact, there will be four variations generated. The images that are generated are square and come in at 1024 pixels on each side. You can cycle through the four generated images, and if you do not see one that is what you are expecting, you can click on the right arrow, and it will generate another new image using the same phrase and words that you used previously.

After an image is generated, you may want to go back and change the description that you have chosen. This can be done by tapping or clicking outside of the image. When you do this, you will be brought back to the "Description" screen with all of your selections or entered words.

Tip

A tip for when you generate an image is to be as descriptive as possible. The more detailed, the better the results will be. Each prompt item can be a maximum of 100 characters, but you can add additional phrases.

Suggestions

Sometimes you may not be able to think of something to generate. For those instances, there are the "Suggestions". Suggestions can be one of a variety of types. These include:

• Themes
• Costumes
• Accessories
• Places

For each of these types, there will be twelve options. You can click on any of them and add them to your image.

Using People and Pets

It is possible to generate images that do not include people; however, once you add a word that could even possibly relate to a person, Image Playground will REQUIRE you to add a person. This does not necessarily need to be a photo of a person, although that is the intention. Instead, you can use an "appearance".

Appearances

An "Appearance" is one of five skin tones matched with one of three appearances of the type of person. One thing that did not make sense was why there were three different options.

Using Photos

If you prefer to create an image based on a photo, you can do so. You can use any photo that you would like, and it will generate an image from the photo. The photo could be of a person, a pet, a nature scene, or any other photo. Image Playground will do its best to try and generate an image to your specifications.

Styles

When Image Playground was initially introduced, it was indicated that there would be three different styles: Animation, Illustration, and Sketch. This last one, Sketch, is not currently present, and it is unknown if it will be added. However, you can still generate an Animation or Illustration. Sketch may be added in the future, but for the time being, it is not there.

If you have generated an image in one of the available styles, you will be able to switch the style by clicking on the "Style" button and then clicking on another style. The image will be regenerated in the requested style. You might think that if you switch back, the image would be regenerated again, but it will not. Instead, the previously generated image will be shown.

Saving Images

Once you have finalized the image, you have a few options. The first is that you can save it. When you do this, it will appear in your Image Playground library. In the instance that you have edited an image and if you attempt to save, you will be prompted whether or not you want to overwrite the image or save as a duplicate. The popup will appear like this:

One thing I would recommend is to save as a duplicate; you can always delete an image later if desired.

Sharing Images

If you want to show the generated image to someone, you can also share an item. To do this, you can use these steps:

1. Locate the image you want to share.
2. Click on the "Up Arrow" button to bring up the system Share Sheet.

Alternatively, you can tap and hold, or right-mouse click, on the image and then select the "Share" item to open the Share Sheet.

Regardless of the manner in which you bring up the Share Sheet, you can then perform any action defined within your Share Sheet, including copying, saving, sending, emailing, or even AirDropping the image.

Image Playground within Notes

One of the features of the Notes app is the ability to draw directly within the app. This feature was introduced with iOS 9 in 2015 and was designed for the original iPad Pro, which introduced the Apple Pencil. Since its introduction, the Notes app has gained even more features, including the tool palette. With iPadOS 18.2, there is a new tool called "Image Wand".

The Image Playground tool is integrated directly into Notes and can be used to take a drawn image and generate a photo from the drawing. To generate an image from a drawing, perform the following steps:

1. Select the drawing that you want to use as a basis for the generated image.
2. Tap and hold to bring up the menu.
3. Tap on "Add to Playground" to open up the image generation popup.
4. Enter some text to help describe what you are looking for.
5. Hit the "up arrow" to generate the image.

Just like Image Playground, four different options will be shown. You can swipe between them to find the right image. Once you have found the proper image, tap on "Done" to add it to the current note.

Generating from Text

Being able to generate an image from a drawing is useful, but sometimes you want to augment a piece of text with an image. If you have a description that you want to use to generate an image, perform the following steps:

1. Select the text you want to use to generate an image.
2. Tap and hold to bring up the menu.
3. Tap on "Add to Playground" to bring up the image generation popup.
4. Swipe between the generated options until you find a suitable image.
5. Tap on "Done" to have the picture added to the current Notes document.

I tested using this text: "Imagine, if you will, a dilapidated house with broken windows, shudders hanging off of the sides, on a hill". This was one of the results:

Gallery of Examples

Here is a gallery of examples from Image Playground:

Photo-based

Photo-based

Closing Thoughts

Image Playground is capable of taking your input, whether it be text or an image, and generating an image. Whether you use text only or ad an image, you can add additional words or description to create the image that you are looking for. It may take a few tries to get the image you are looking for. One tip is to be as descriptive as possible.

For your images, you have a couple of different options for styles, including Animation and Illustration, and the image will be 1024 x 1024. After you have generated your image, you can share it with others, including emailing, AirDropping, or even messaging, depending on what you need.

It is hoped that Apple increases the physical size of the images and maybe even allows different sizes because it would work better in some situations than others.

Be sure to check out all of the other articles in the Apple Intelligence series.

Apple has gotten into what society is calling “Artificial Intelligence”, or “AI”, except they have put their own spin on the term. One of Apple’s core tenets is protecting user privacy, and they attempt to do so whenever possible. In order to accomplish this, Apple attempts to protect user privacy through a combination of performing as many requests on the device as possible. However, for advanced requests that may not always be possible. For those requests there is a feature called Private Cloud Compute. Private Cloud Compute is a set of servers run by Apple that are capable of handling your request, providing the result, and then the server is completely erased. If you need more details, be sure to check out the post that is the Introduction to Apple Intelligence.

Apple is releasing the Apple Intelligence features in batches. The first set of features released were done so in iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. The second set of Apple Intelligence features are being released with iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2. There are four new features for this set of features. This article will cover “Mail Categorization”.

If you are anything like me, you have a bunch of different email accounts. You may have one account that you set up a long time ago and has become nothing but spam, and another that you use for everyday use, and maybe another that is for a specific purpose. No matter how many email accounts you have, it is likely that you get a lot of email messages. The emails may be order notifications, newsletters, or even promotions.

What would be useful is being able to put emails into various groups or categories. Apple Intelligence on iOS 18.2 can do just that. Mail Categorization will put your emails into one of four different categories. These categories are:

• Transactions
• Updates
• Promotions
• Primary

Let us look at each in turn, starting with Transactions.

Transactions

The “Transactions” category will have any orders that you have made, including things like delivery notifications. These are grouped by sender. What this means is that all of the messages from a specific vendor will be grouped together so you can see them all in one place. Here is an example of what that might look like:

Promotions

The “Promotions” category is meant for advertisements. Just like the other

Mail App Badge

When you have Mail Categorization enabled, as well as badges on your Mail app, by default only the emails in the “Primary” category will badge the app icon. However, if you would like, you can change this to be “All” mail. To do this, perform the following steps:

1. Open Settings
2. Scroll down to “Apps”.
3. Tap on “Apps” to open the app list.
4. Scroll down to “Mail”.
5. Tap on “Mail” to open up Mail’s app preferences.
6. Tap on “Notifications” to bring up the Notifications section.
7. Tap on “Customize Notifications” to bring up notifications options.
8. Under Badges tap on “All Unread Messages”.

Once you select this option, the badge for the Mail app will show whenever there is an unread message in one of your email accounts. This would be the same behavior as Mail exhibited in iOS 18.1. This means that anything that is in a folder or Junk Mail will not be shown.

Disabling Categorization

If you enable Apple Intelligence and find that Mail Categorization is not for you, there is an option to disable it. This can be done by performing the following steps:

1. Open the Mail app.
2. Tap on “All Inboxes”, or any individual inbox.
3. Tap on the “…” button in the upper corner. A popup will appear.
4. Tap on “List View”.

Once you enable list view, this will be just like Mail under iOS 18.1, which means no categorization. It should be noted that this can be done on an account-by-account basis. This means that you can enable categorization for one email account but not for another. This means that you can customize the Mail app in a manner that works best for you.

My Thoughts

After having used mail categorization for a while, I am on the precipice of actually disabling it. The primary reason for this is not because of any categorization missteps, but because I prefer to take care of all of my emails, and the badging does not always show when I have a new email. Because of this, I end up not seeing mail until I open it again. This is my personal preference for how I handle email. This is likely because I do not get a lot of email; at least that is not already filtered by SPAM filters. Therefore, I do not necessarily have the need to automatically categorize emails as others might need to.

To a much lesser extent, the fact that Mail Categorization is only available on the iPhone is a big misstep from Apple. I understand that the iPhone is the biggest platform, but having feature parity, particularly when it comes to experiences that are cross-platform, is imperative for some users. Having some mail categorized and some not may cause some users to disable the feature and never re-enable it.

Closing Thoughts

The ability to have email automatically categorized is a good addition to iOS. Unfortunately, it is only available on the iPhone at this time. It may expand to iPadOS and macOS at some point in the future, but Apple has not indicated any plans for that to occur.

While Apple Intelligence tries to properly categorize your incoming email, it may not always get things correct. In those instances, you can recategorize any incoming message, and it should be properly categorized in the future.

It should be reiterated that Mail Categorization is only available on iOS. It is not available on iPadOS nor on macOS. Therefore, on iPadOS and macOS, those apps will behave as they did previously.

Be sure to check out all of the other articles in the Apple Intelligence series.