Apple’s Text-to-Image AI ‘Image Playground’ Targets Fun, not Photorealism [Video]

Apple Intelligence is settling into a semi-regular update schedule. Within iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2, Apple is bringing a slate of improvements to its AI technology and software platform, including the generative text-to-image tool, Image Playground.

First unveiled at WWDC in June, Apple Intelligence hit iPhone, iPad, and Mac in late October with iOS/iPadOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1. The first iteration introduced an improved Siri, writing tools, and an AI-powered photo editing tool, Clean Up.

With the latest software release, available now, Apple Intelligence adds a few more features Apple first showed off in June, including the ability to generate images with Image Playground, tools to create customized emojis (“Genmoji,” in Apple’s terminology), and Image Wand, a way to add images, illustrations, and sketches to notes. As promised, ChatGPT is also now integrated into Siri and Apple’s AI-powered Writing Tools. Users can choose whether to enable ChatGPT and an OpenAI account is not required to use the ChatGPT tools within Apple …