APPLE’S top boss has shared some of the iPhone’s latest and greatest tricks with The Sun – including a genius photo tip that everyone needs to know.
Tim Cook knows a thing or two about the iPhone, and revealed a long list of clever new iPhone hacks that you’re able to try today.
The Apple chief spoke to The Sun’s Sean Keach during a special Christmas visit to the company’s Regent Street store in London this week.
It timed in with the launch of Apple Intelligence in the UK, which is a fun and handy selection of AI-powered features for your devices.
The iPhone gets updated all the time, of course – but Tim revealed why this latest upgrade is extra special.
“It means that generative AI is coming to your iPhone, your iPad, and the Mac, and it’s going to be in all of the apps that you use every day, like Mail and Messages and Notes,” Tim told The Sun, speaking at one of Britain’s most iconic Apple stores.
“So it’s deeply integrated and you will experience it and it will make a profound difference in your life.”
He added: “It will profoundly change how you use your iPhone.”
It sounds great, but what does it actually do?
Well it turns out that one of the best tricks is in the Photos app.
There’s a new feature called Clean Up that lets you instantly improve photos by removing almost anything.
“You can take a photo and if there’s a third person in the photo that you prefer not to be there, you can clean up the photo and remove the person,” Tim explained.
He explained: “All of us are photographers, right? We’ve all become photographers, and we all need to clean up some of our photos.”
All you need to do is tap the Clean Up button and – as if by magic – a rogue tourist ruining your stunning holiday snap disappears into thin air.
That’s great, but I don’t get the impression Tim Cook has a lot of free time for holidaying.
So it’s no surprise that the Apple boss admitted one of his favourite new Apple Intelligence tricks is a time-saving feature in the Mail app.
It’s busy work running a company worth nearly four trillion dollars, after all.
“I get hundreds of emails a day,” Tim told us.
“And so one of the things I use it for in a significant way is to summarise my emails.
“With one click, you can take a very long email and summarise it into something that you can move through fairly quickly.
“You can also – if you’re replying to people in Messages, as an example – it will suggest smart replies.
“And you’ll be amazed at how useful these are. It’s not 100%, but it’s really, really good and it will change how you do things.”
There are a few other clever tricks Tim told Sun readers they should definitely be trying out.
One is called Genmoji, and it’s pretty much a dream come true for emoji fans.
It lets you create almost any emoji that you can dream up – Tim boasted that he’d made a Christmas-themed Big Ben emoji earlier that day. Very festive.
Then there’s Image Playground, which lets you create fun images from scratch.
You can even insert your own face – or your friends and family – into fun cartoon creations using the feature.
So there’s a mix of business and leisure with these features, which Tim hopes will mean there’s something for everyone.
“All of these things add up to be significant,” Tim told The Sun.
“I think that people are going to find, sort of like they did when we brought apps to iPhone, that it wasn’t a matter of your favourite app.
“It was all of the apps that you use throughout the day.
“This is now going to be the next level of iPhone.”
Once you've updated to Apple Intelligence, try these out...
Genmoji
Open the emoji panel on your keyboard, then tap the smiley face icon with a plus symbol on it.
Then enter a description for the Genmoji that you want to create, tap Done, then tap Add on the Genmoji that you want to use.
Mail Summaries
Go to the Mail app and tap on an email.
Then just tap the new Summarise button.
Clean Up
Go into Photos, select an image, then tap the Edit button (it has three sliders as an icon).
Now tap on Clean Up, then tap, brush, or circle the object or person that you want to remove.
Once you’re happy, hit Done and your changes will be saved.
Image Playground
You’ll find this feature inside the new Image Playground app.
You can either create an image from a concept (like a theme or place), a description, or inspired by a person in your photo library.
Once you’re happy with the image, tap Done to save it to your gallery.
Smart Reply
Go to the Messages app, tap on a conversation, then press the text field.
A suggested reply might then appear – and then Apple Intelligence will draft it for you.
If you like it, send it!
To see if you’ve got an iPhone update waiting, just go to Settings > General > Software Update.
Picture Credit: Apple
Tim also thinks that, on the whole, AI is a good thing for humanity.
The Sun asked him whether it’s still important to build AI tech despite public fears over the speed at which AI is progressing, worries around privacy, and even job safety.
But the Apple chief – who also spoke to The Sun earlier this year about his future-gazing Apple Vision Pro headset – is convinced that AI is a good thing, generally speaking.
“The reason I’m excited about it is because it improves our lives,” Tim said.
“It doesn’t just change our lives, it makes them better.
“And so we’ve always viewed technology as being something that should better humanity, not subtract.”
He pointed out that AI has already been in Apple devices for a while now.
So while it might feel like these AI upgrades are coming all at once, they’ve actually been trickling in behind the scenes for a while.
Importantly, some of the might even save your life.
Tim points out the Apple Watch can detect atrial fibrillation, a type of irregular heart rhythm. If it’s not treated, it can lead to heart failure, blood clots, and ultimately a stroke.
“Things like the watch we have: we’ve had AI powering the watch forever,” Tim told The Sun.
“So if you have AFib, AI determines that on the watch and sends you a notification.
“If you have a high heart rate, a low heart rate, if you run the ECG, you’re using AI.
“All of these things that people didn’t know were AI have been building for a long time.
“And now we have generative AI, that will take this to the next level.
“But what we’re going to do is we’re going to do it thoughtfully and deliberately.
“We’re going to make sure the things that we put out there better humanity, not subtract from it.”
Here's the official list of Apple devices with processors powerful enough to support the new Apple Intelligence features...
Picture Credit: Apple / The Sun
Apple Intelligence arrived in the UK this week with the iOS 18.2 update.
For iPhone owners, the new features are available on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max.
