Today Apple announced a new iPhone for the iPhone 16 lineup, the iPhone 16e. At first glance, you might think it might be the replacement for the iPhone SE, but I think it is really the replacement for the iPhone 14. The iPhone 16e continues to be the entry-level device. The iPhone 16e shares many features of the iPhone 14, but not all of them.
Screen Size
The iPhone 16e has a 6.1-inch screen. This is a big jump over the previous iPhone SE’s screen size of 4.7 inches, but it is the same as the iPhone 14. The increased screen size also means that there is no longer a Home Button. In its place is more screen, and it now utilizes the same approach as all iPhones introduced after the iPhone X: it uses swipe gestures to navigate.
The screen itself is an OLED Super Retina XDR display. This means that it supports the P3 color space, has 800 nits of brightness, supports HDR, and True Tone.
Processor
Whether you look at the iPhone 14 or the iPhone SE, both of them have the same processor, the A15 Bionic. This is a bit older and would otherwise be able to perform everything that Apple might expect. But now the iPhone 16e has an A18 in it, just like the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus. There is one slight difference, the iPhone 16e only has a 4-core GPU, whereas the iPhone 16 has a 5-core GPU. For most users and in most use cases, this will not be noticeable, but it is a difference.
Colors
The iPhone 16e comes in two colors: Black and White. Both of these are matte finishes. These two colors replace the previous Midnight, Starlight, and (PRODUCT) Red. It is possible that additional colors may be added in the future, but for now, these are the only two options. This does mean that Apple does currently sell any (PRODUCT)RED devices.
Apple Intelligence
As has been rumored and expected, the iPhone 16 does support Apple Intelligence. This is due to the A18 chip and the 8GB of memory in the device. The iPhone 16e supports all of the Apple Intelligence features, like Writing Tools, ChatGPT integration, and Visual Intelligence.
Missing Features
Even though the iPhone 16e has the latest features, like the Action Button, it does not have everything that was present on the iPhone 14. For some users, they are willing to make that trade-off, yet for others, these missing items may be deal breakers. The items that are not present on the iPhone 16e are MagSafe, Dynamic Island, and a second camera. Beyond this, there is no Camera Control button, even though it is present on all other iPhone 16 models.
Storage and Price
The iPhone 16e takes the place of the iPhone 14, which means it starts at $599 for 128GB, $699 for 256GB, and $899 for the 512GB version. You can pre-order it this Friday, February 21st, and pre-orders will start arriving on Friday, February 28th, 2025.
Cases
As they have done in the past, Apple has also released some silicone cases, this time in five colors. These colors are Black, White, Fuchsia, Lake Green, and Winter Blue. These are $39 each, and again, do not support MagSafe.
Closing Thoughts
For an entry level phone the iPhone 16e does have some compromises, but it still has a number of features that the current phones have. This includes Emergency SOS, Crash Detection, USB-C, and 5G, just to name a few. For those who need an upgrade, the iPhone 16e could be a great update at a reasonable price. It is indeed more expensive than the previous iPhone SE, but it is the same price as the iPhone 14.
If you are price conscious, and are willing to make a couple of trade offs in terms of features, then the iPhone 16e might be a good choice.
I have said it before, and I will continue to say it: I know building software is not easy; there will be bugs and issues that may crop up from time to time. Even though I am well aware of bugs, that does not mean that I do not get irritated by them from time to time. The latest issue is one that I noticed with the "Heavy Rotation Mix" within my Apple Music library.
In case you are not aware, the Heavy Rotation Mix is a playlist that, as the name indicates, has the songs that you have played a lot of within the last few days. This playlist is a slightly different one, in that it is updated every day.
The issue that I have is that there is a song that I have not listened to on the list. The specific title is "Fighting For" by Evan Honer. Why would this one be in my playlist if I never listened to it? Well, I have listened to a slightly different version of the song; that one is a duet with Hailey Whitters.
You can see in the image below the fact that the title "Fighting For" is not in my library. This is indicated by the "Add to Library" menu item in the popup.
What is even better is that it even says "Remove Download", when that particular title is not actually already downloaded.
The image below is for "girl you’re taking home" by Ella Langley, and it is in my library. This can be identified by the "Remove" menu item, which will ask to remove to either remove the download or delete from the library.
Why?
What I do not understand is how Apple can add a song that I have not listened to. Yes, the title for the two items is the same, but the song is not in my library. It would be one thing if it was a different album, or even if the album artwork was different, but this is not the issue. It is an entirely different song. The two items have different song id numbers. It is beyond me how Apple cannot be bothered to easily check to see if a song is even in a user’s library. My thought is that if the song is not in a user's library, then it should not be included in the playlist at all.
One thing that is not known, almost a year after being introduced, is whether the playlist is updated on a device and then uploaded to Apple's servers, or whether Apple generates the playlist on their servers and then updates the playlist. Regardless of how it is generated, Apple has access to the data, meaning that there is no reason it should not be able to detect items that are in a user's library.
Closing Thoughts
It is not that the version done by Evan Honer on his own is bad; it is a perfectly good song. However, I personally prefer the duet with Hailey Whitters because it puts a different spin on the song. Another example where this is also true is with the song "The Joker and the Queen" by Ed Sheeran. His version is good, but the duet with Taylor Swift makes the song even better.
Apple's music "matching" needs to actually look at the title and the artist, and whether or not it is a live version. In this case, it is not live, but a duet. Which, in my mind, means that due to the fact that there are two artists, it should never match a song with a single artist.
In the grand scheme of things, this is just a minor annoyance. Yet, this is just one of the numerous software quality issues that seem to be creeping into Apple’s software as of late.
If you have ever built any sort of software, you are well aware that no software is every bug free, but it is common to try and eliminate as many bugs as possible. Apple has a large number of operating systems, including, audioOS (HomePod), iOS, iPadOS, macOS, visionOS, watchOS, and even tvOS.
Over the last 15 years Apple has made tremendous strides in eliminating the larger bugs, like crashing devices, kernel panics, and even app crashes. That is not to say that they cannot happen, of course they can, but their frequency is significantly less than in previous years. However, it seems like there are still some operating systems that do not get nearly as much attention.
One of the areas where I see a number of a bugs is with tvOS. My "favorite" bug occurs within the Library section. There are actually two issues.
Not Always Showing Group
The first issue that I have is that sometimes when switching to eithe the "Movies" or "TV Show" tab, the actual data might not change to show the proper data. The selected group changes, but the actual data does not.
This is easily fixable by just choosing another item and then going back. This is not an issue, since there is a fix, but it is still irritating when you want to watch something.
Incorrect Movie Posters
The more annoying bug that I have is with movie posters that are shown. As an example, I have a movie called "Tomorrow When the War Began". The actual poster that is shown is in Spanish, even though I do not own the Spanish version. What is more irritating is that this has happened on several titles previously, but this is the current one.
The more egregious example though, is for the movie "Whiteout". The movie poster for this is COMPLETELY wrong. It shows the movie poster for "Dracula III: Legacy". There is no reason why this should be the case. I am sure this is a caching issue, but the strange part is that it does not happen on all devices.
On my iPhone, it is the right movie poster, the same on my iPad. However, on my MacBook Pro, Apple TV 4K, MacBook Pro, and Mac Studio, it is in the correct movie poster. Even on Apple's "Marketing Tools" site, it shows the incorrect movie poster.
Unfortunately, there is no way for me to fix the caching issues. I have reported it to Apple using their Feedback mechanism (FB16415600), but I will likely never hear back.
Closing Thoughts
While Apple has significantly improved the underlying software, they still have a long way to go with their operating systems that are not that important, like Apple TV. I get that there is only so much time that Apple is willing to spend on a platform that is ancillary, but it would be nice to see it actually get some attention.
For the last couple of years I have posted a "Year in Review". You can check out the post for 2021, 2022, and 2023. To continue this, I have opted to post another year in review. Here are the statistics for the year for the site, my books, and my apps.
Overview
In October of 2022 I completely changed the entire infrastructure of the site moving away from wordpress and now I use a static site generation package called "Publish" by John Sundell. Having used this method for over a year now, it has provided some insight.
The first thing is that it does take a bit more work to create a new post. It is not the writing of the post itself, because that can take various amounts of time depending on the post, but the extra work comes from the actual generation of the pages. It can take anywhere from 70 seconds to 90 seconds to generate the site. This generation needs to occur everytime that anything is changed.
Because of this, I have actually created a development site. This site takes approximately 2 seconds to fully generate and run. This is the site that I use to write my longer posts because it takes so much less time to generate the entire site. Once I have an article in the state that I want, I then copy and paste it to my live directory and then regenerate the site.
Now, let us look at individual aspects of the site and apps.
Posts
Total Posts: 130. This is approximately 25% fewer posts than in 2024 as compared to 2023. Number of "Availability" posts: 85 for 2024, there were 113 last year, so about 25% fewer posts. Number of "Non-availability" posts: 41. This compares to 48 in 2023, 69 in 2022, and 70 in 2021. Reviews: I wrote 4 reviews in 2024. There were 6 reviews in 2023, 7 reviews in 2022, and 12 reviews during 2021.
Total Word Count (not including "availability" posts): 46,561 for an average of 1,135.63 words per post Average Word Count (all posts): 1,231.46 words per post
Much like last year, there is a mix of years. four from 2024, two from 2023, one from 2022, three from 2021, and three from 2018.
Page Views
With changing the entire infrastructure of the site, one thing that needed to change was the mechanism for calculating page views.
Total Page Views from 2016 to 2022 (Wordpress using JetPack plugin):
2022: 9,392 (January 1st to October 27th - 300 days) / 31.30 per day.
2021: 13,860 / 37.97 per day
2020: 9,594 / 26.21 per day
2019: 13,475 / 36.91 per day
2018: 11,573 / 31.71 per day
2017: 29,126 / 79.80 per day
2016: 34,166 / 93.35 per day
New Method:
2024: 135,570 / 371.43 views per day.
2023: 125,836 / 345.71 views per day.
2022: 31,337 (October 28th to December 30th - 64 days) / 489.64 views per day.
The new calculation mechanism reads all of the log files and then calculates the total per individual page. This script excludes certain urls, like the upload directories, css files, and any other static files. This script also excludes bots, feed readers, tag pages, the RSS Feed, and similar items. Additionally, it only looks at successful items served, meaning it excludes any 400, 401, 403, 404, 301 and 302 redirects, as well as 500 errors.
Book Statistics
Here are the statistics for the total number of books sold from 2019 to 2024. These are the actual number of books sold across all avenues of sales.
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
Total
Apple
240
181
255
322
475
561
2,034
Amazon
4
13
26
48
130
251
472
Paperback (B&W)
38
41
11
21
32
115
258
Hardcover/Color Paperback
2
3
2
0
8
10
25
Total
284
238
294
391
645
937
2,789
The hardcover sales have never been stellar, so it makes sense that there was not much of change; the same applies to the paperback sales as well. The increase in eBook sales is welcome, but not a significant increase.
App Statistics
Last year I launched a second app called "4077: An Unofficial MASH Trivia App". So let us look at those statistics.
MASH Trivia
It is a trivia app that covers the classic TV show, M*A*S*H. It requires iOS 16, iPadOS 16, or macOS Ventura (and newer). You can view more information about this on its site: MashTrivia.app, as well as play the web-version of the game.
2024: 112
2023: 149
2022: 42
This is a decrease in downloads, of about 25%. But, for a game that is free and gets 1 or 2 updates a year, it is not bad, particularly for a triva game for a single show. You can download it and give your M*A*S*H knowledge a try.
wwriteLite
This year there were only a single update for wwriteLite. Here are the new downloads of wwriteLite per year:
2024: 122
2023: 47
2022: 49
2021: 69
2020: 56
2019: 66
2018: 136
2017: 101
2016: 132
Unlike last year, I am quite suprised as to why there have been more app downloads for my app. What is most striking is that I did not do an update to the app between August of 2023 and December of 2024. The 2024 update was to remove some features. wwriteLite has been moved to hobby status and will not be receiving that many updates in the future. Even with that, feel free to >download wwriteLite and let me know of any bugs.
Closing Thoughts
A lot has happened this year on the site. Despite selling more copies of my books, the amount is not that much more. As I stated in my post Announcement: Changes to the Website, App, and Books, I have wound down by side business, which will mean no new books.
For website visits, there has been a couple of chnages. The biggest is that both Threads and BlueSky have taken off in terms of popularity. I have been spending more time on both of these, and on Threads my post that referenced my iPhone 16 review did manage to get over 10,000 views, but I do not know how many individual views that garnered. Most of my other posts did not nearly as much attention; but it does seem as though my reviews do seem to do well.
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:
Open Settings.
Scroll down to "Apple Intelligence & Siri".
Tap, or click, on Apple Intelligence & Siri to open up the settings.
Under "Extensions" tap, or click, on ChatGPT.
Tap, or click, on "Setup" next to Use ChatGPT to begin the setup wizard. A popup will appear.
Tap on the "Next" button to continue. A "Privacy" explanation screen will appear.
On the "Privacy" screen, tap on the "Enable ChatGPT" button. The optional account screen will appear.
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.
Screenshot showing ChatGPT configured on macOS Sequoia.
ChatGPT Requests
When you make a Siri request that Siri cannot handle itself, you will see a prompt similar to this:
Screenshot showing Siri confirming use of ChatGPT when requesting a writing prompt.
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.
Screenshot showing benefits of upgrading to ChatGPT Plus.
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:
Open Settings.
Scroll down to "Apple Intelligence & Siri".
Under Extensions, tap on "ChatGPT".
Tap on "Upgrade to ChatGPT Plus". A popup will appear.
Tap on the "Subscribe" button. An App Store popup will appear.
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.
Screen showing the features of Genmoji.
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:
Open the Emoji keyboard.
Start typing the emoji that you are looking for.
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.
An example Gemoji of a purple hat on a unicorn.
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:
Locate the custom emoji that you want to get details about.
Tap and hold, or right-mouse click, on the emoji. A menu will appear.
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.
Screen showing the details of a Genmoji.
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.
Screenshot of the screen within an Image Playground used to describe an image
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.
Screenshot of the three avatar options within the Person view.
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.
A red tree using the animation style.A red tree using the illustration style.
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:
Save a duplicate of an image.
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:
Locate the image you want to share.
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:
Select the drawing that you want to use as a basis for the generated image.
Tap and hold to bring up the menu.
Tap on "Add to Playground" to open up the image generation popup.
Enter some text to help describe what you are looking for.
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:
Select the text you want to use to generate an image.
Tap and hold to bring up the menu.
Tap on "Add to Playground" to bring up the image generation popup.
Swipe between the generated options until you find a suitable image.
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:
Image of a dilapidated house generated from text.
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:
Screenshot of multiple orders from a single location showing in a list
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:
Open Settings
Scroll down to “Apps”.
Tap on “Apps” to open the app list.
Scroll down to “Mail”.
Tap on “Mail” to open up Mail’s app preferences.
Tap on “Notifications” to bring up the Notifications section.
Tap on “Customize Notifications” to bring up notifications options.
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:
Open the Mail app.
Tap on “All Inboxes”, or any individual inbox.
Tap on the “…” button in the upper corner. A popup will appear.
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.
