iOS 18 Preview

Yesterday, Apple showed the iOS 18 Preview and Apple Intelligence and it might be the worst release they made.

The entire update is about generative AI. Companies have been adding generative AI whenever it’s useful for the past few years. Apple was among few companies that didn’t and now they jumped on that bandwagon as well.

One would expect Apple to add AI features sparingly, where it feels right, where it doesn’t obstruct the user flow, where it’s invisible. They have not. Instead, they’ve released a bunch of unrefined features as if to show their relevance.

Some features — summaries, proofreading — are more or less valuable. While others — emoji generation, anyone? — are out of place.

Another problem with iOS 18 is that it looks like it was designed in a haste. Apple has been slowly losing its design edge for a few years, but this update feels even less polished. You get buttons that are not aligned, font colors that do not match, and patterns that do not work.

The entire update feels like there was no attention to details — neither to design nor feature choices.