In his Power On newsletter, Gurman said that Apple now plans to make the Image Playground feature for generating images and the Genmoji feature for generating custom emoji available in iOS 18.2, which will likely be released in December.
Here is how Apple describes Image Playground:
Produce fun, original images in seconds with the Image Playground experience right in your apps. Create an entirely new image based on a description, suggested concepts, and even a person from your Photos library. You can easily adjust the style and make changes to match a Messages thread, your Freeform board, or a slide in Keynote.
Here is how Apple describes Genmoji:
Make a brand-new Genmoji right in the keyboard to match any conversation. Provide a description to see a preview, and adjust your description until it's perfect. You can even pick someone from your Photos library and create a Genmoji that looks like them.
The first Apple Intelligence features will be available starting with iOS 18.1, which is likely to be released to the public in October. These features include new writing tools for generating and summarizing text, notification summaries, suggested replies in the Messages app, the ability to record and transcribe phone calls, a new "Clean Up" tool in the Photos app that can quickly remove objects from a photo, and a few others.
Apple Intelligence will require an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max running iOS 18.1 or later. The features will initially be available with device language set to English only. Apple said more languages will follow over the next year.
Monday October 27, 2025 7:55 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more.
Below, we outline key details about iOS 26.1.
Release Date
Given that Apple has yet to seed an iOS 26.1 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, the...
Wednesday October 29, 2025 4:22 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to drop iOS 26.1, the first major point release since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least six notable changes and improvements to look forward to. We've rounded them up below.
Apple has already provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 26.1, which means Apple will likely roll out the update to all compatible...
Monday October 27, 2025 4:51 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is designing an updated version of the Apple TV 4K, and rumors suggest that it could come out sometime in the next couple of months. We're not expecting a major overhaul with design changes, but even a simple chip upgrade will bring major improvements to Apple's set-top box.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
We've rounded up all the latest Apple TV rumors.
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Tuesday October 28, 2025 1:07 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, macOS Tahoe 26.1, tvOS 26.1, watchOS 26.1, and visionOS 26.1 updates for testing purposes. The RCs betas come a week after Apple released the fourth betas.
The new betas can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software...
Monday October 27, 2025 9:15 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple this month refreshed the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, and higher-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are expected to follow in early 2026. However, these machines will represent the final update to the current design, with Apple reportedly developing a completely new version of the MacBook Pro packed with next-generation hardware...
Thursday October 30, 2025 4:42 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
One thing worth...
Tuesday October 28, 2025 1:21 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of macOS Tahoe 26.1, which means the update will likely see a public launch next week.
The release candidate includes notes on what's in the update, so we have a full picture of the new features that Apple has included.
macOS Tahoe 26.1 adds AutoMix support over AirPlay, improved FaceTime audio...
Wednesday October 29, 2025 7:13 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Rumors are stoking excitement for the next-generation iPad mini that Apple is reportedly close to launching. So what should we expect from the successor to the iPad mini 7 that Apple released over a year ago? Read on to find out.
Processor and Performance
Apple is working on a next-generation version of the iPad mini (codename J510/J511) that features the A19 Pro chip, according to...
Tuesday October 28, 2025 5:27 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple is preparing to bring support for its digital car key feature to Jetour vehicles, according to evidence uncovered on Apple's backend by MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris.
Introduced in 2022, Car Keys allows an iPhone or Apple Watch to unlock a vehicle through the Wallet app. A digital version of a car key is stored in Wallet, and unlocking can be done by holding an Apple Watch or...
This makes sense after the rollout of the Google tool and everyone realized there weren’t sufficient guardrails in place to prevent (or at least reduce) the likelihood of generating offensive content from the tool. They’d rather have it locked down up front as opposed to having to tweak it afterwards.
While fully sensitive to "offensive," who can be the judge of that? Artistic expression at its best has no boundaries. As someone decides to set boundaries, art is "pinched" down.
I have zero desire to be exposed to "offensive" images myself... but my definition of what is offensive will likely differ from yours which will differ from the next guy. Someone's "absolutely offensive" is someone else's cutting-edge, "amazing" art(istic expression).
Trusting a corporation to police it will be getting their definition of offensive... which seems likely to lean as far to the "safe" for any and all eyes as possible... which means pinching the boundaries much tighter than you or I or the other guy might pinch it. I don't believe that is best... even if in one read, it might seem so to many. There are people who can be offended over what will seem like (towards) nothing to the masses. Filter offensive for them (also Apple product buyers) and I suspect the frustration with the tool being too "tight" for the masses will be criticized for overdoing it... especially with other options available with standards not set so tight.
This makes sense after the rollout of the Google tool and everyone realized there weren’t sufficient guardrails in place to prevent (or at least reduce) the likelihood of generating offensive content from the tool. They’d rather have it locked down up front as opposed to having to tweak it afterwards.
Apple should cancel the whole AI thing. Most people don’t feel comfortable with the whole idea and it will cause more problems in every way possible. Fixing Bugs is way more important and adding easier features.
You are going to get left behind if you do not embrace AI.
I've been using Office 365's AI feature for a while. It's such a mixed bag and I'm left feeling I really don't think AI is the big breakthrough that people want it to be. It's very hard to describe why.
On the one hand, it can do amazing things, and is ideal for some narrow circumstances. Want the outline for a report? Word will create it instantly, tailored to your subject area. Ditto it can create presentations. In Excel it can create pivot tables and charts by analysing data for interesting tidbits. The main Copilot chat tool can search all your docs and chats to find when something was mentioned.
It's very impressive. But it's somehow not actually that useful.
The first problem is that we need features in apps to be cast iron reliable. And AI just isn't. It's pretty good. But it has a habit of letting the user down. It's like having a ********ting friend. You might enjoy being in their company, and you may love what they say. But at the end of the day, you're a fool if you trust or rely upon them.
The second issue is that in the rush to get the AI products to market, nobody has really understood what they are.
Computers until now have been do-it-with-me. Steve Jobs said a computer was like a bicycle for the mind, and this was perfect. A computer enhances human intelligence. You can do the same things but better, and faster.
AI is a different type of computing. It's do-it-for-me. To use the bicycle metaphor, the computer will now steer the bike. All you have to do is point it in the right direction and pump the pedals to make it move. Hmmm...
It's reducing the necessity of the human's abilities, but the human is still right there. This is the fundamental issue.
Computers work great when they do-it-with-us.
They're problematic when they do-it-for-us. Nobody has yet realised this and I suspect a bubble is about to burst.
I think a lot of people in the tech industry over-estimate how much the "typical" user cares about AI. No one I work with would care at all if an iPhone was marketed as an AI device.
