Aside from certain marketing materials, we haven’t witnessed the Apple Intelligence image generation features in action yet. Image Playgrounds and Genmoji are not currently available in the iOS 18.1 Apple Intelligence betas; they are rumored to be launched as part of the iOS 18.2 cycle later this year.
However, Apple has today shared a real-world example with WIRED magazine. As pictured above, adorned with an AI watermark applied by WIRED, it depicts Apple SVP Craig Federighi’s dog.
To be clear, Apple sent the un-watermarked image to WIRED for publication; WIRED then applied the ‘AI-Generated Image’ disclaimer text across the center of it, in accordance with their website’s policy on featuring AI works.
When Image Playgrounds becomes available to customers, there won’t be a visual watermark applied to the photos. The EXIF metadata included in the file will indicate that it was created using AI, just as we’ve already seen with the Photos’ Clean Up feature. This means iOS and other apps will be able to identify which images are generated by the AI tools. However, file metadata can be removed using commonly available tools, and similarly, if the image is screenshots, any metadata of the original image is lost.
In terms of the risk of deception, Apple’s image generation suite won’t be mistaken for reality. This is because Apple is intentionally starting with a limited set of non-photorealistic styles: users can choose from “animation”, “sketch”, or “illustration” styles.
The Craig’s dog image appears to have been generated using the animation style, which are seemingly meant to resemble Pixar-esque CGI models. It’s difficult to judge how much the AI creation actually resembles Craig’s dog, named Bailey, as we don’t have a photo of her for comparison.
In the AI image, Bailey is situated in front of a cake and wearing a party hat, as Federighi created the image for his wife to celebrate Bailey’s recent birthday. Image Playgrounds allows users to enter a text prompt to customize the type of output they desire.
When it is released, Image Playgrounds will be available as a standalone app and also be built into communication apps like Messages; concepts related to the current conversation context will be automatically suggested.
You’ll need an iPhone 15 Pro or later to access Apple Intelligence, or an iPad or Mac with the M1 chip or later. The first round of Apple Intelligence features will launch alongside iOS 18.1 in October in the United States. Other variants of English will be supported starting in December, and other languages will follow next year.
Apple Intelligence features won’t be available to customers in the European Union until Apple can comply with EU laws. In an interview with WIRED, Federighi said, “we do have to comply with regulations, and there is uncertainty in certain environments that we’re trying to sort out so that we can bring these features to our customers as soon as possible.”
