Apple Intelligence is an unofficial application for the Apple Watch. However, to my mind, one of the major AI attributes in iOS 18.1 is available and is at its best when used on the Watch. Here’s how notification summaries actively contribute to Apple Intelligence for your wrist.
The key feature that Apple decided to highlight when it was first presented at WWDC 2024 in June was its accessibility and the fact that it can offer you a quick summary of all the notifications it received on your behalf so that you don’t have to scroll through hundreds of alerts to get the gist of what has happened – at least not if you were using the Apple Intelligence app. And it is that AI feature that is going to shine on all of the upper-echelon Apple Watches.
Notification digests brought to you by Apple Intelligence
One of the main twist of Apple Intelligence is speech processing helps. This umbrella includes things such as the ‘Write’ tab, located in the toolbar at the top of the page, that provides automated proofreading and rewriting tools, as well as Mail’s ‘Priority’ messages and suggestions for ‘Smart Reply,’ among others.
Another area where AI language tools are used is in notification summaries. For supported apps such as Messages and Mail, Apple Intelligence uses notifications in the form of short descriptions of a given message. Summaries are not limited to notifications. Below is a sample of the use of summarized emails in the Mail app.
iPad and iPhone Mail Notification Summaries iOS 18.1
This will apply whether the message is already brief and you will be able to appreciate the actual content of the message incorporated in your notification. In the case of longer messages, notification no longer displays the message, ‘message is the first part of’. Such brief excerpts are very seldom informative.
And this works for summarizing a whole conversation too: if currently on your Watch there are several unread Messages notifications in a folder, the summary adapts to cover all the notifications. In essence, notification summaries allow you to comprehend the gist of a certain message or conversation in brief.
AI notifications on the way to Apple Watch
Apple Watch with summaries done with the help of artificial intelligence. Apple Watch can in no way be considered as a supported Apple Intelligence gadget. Still, since the iPhone drives notifications to its connected Watch, it also reaps these iOS 18.1 AI notifications.
These ‘intelligent’ notifications are great enough on the iPhone, but they’re even more valuable on the Watch. This feature takes such advantage of the screen real estate of the Apple Watch that it appears to have been designed for watchOS only.
Notification summaries prove that watchOS can do it and more
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Most of the features that will come with Apple Intelligence simply do not fit the Watch. Some other Apple Intelligence features that would be great in watchOS include:
- AI-powered Smart Reply suggestions
- A new interface of Siri in combination with ChatGPT
- The summaries of the web pages that one is sent as a link
- This line is just the beginning of many consequences. Apple will, of course, continue introducing new Apple Intelligence options in the following years. Some of those will be good or even excellent for the Watch.
There are remarkable impediments concerning processors to perform native Watch-based AI. But notification summaries demonstrate how Apple Watch can benefit from Apple’s investment in this sphere.