Well, it does do something. A few things, in fact. But like many AI tools, it seems to be an incredibly computationally demanding shortcut for ordinary tasks. This isn’t necessarily bad, especially as inference — that is, performing the actual text analysis, generation, etc. — becomes efficient enough to move to the device itself.

It was billed as much more, however. Tim Cook told us at the outset of Monday’s “Glowtime” event that Apple Intelligence’s “breakthrough capabilities” will have “an incredible impact.” Craig Federighi said it will “transform so much of what you do with your iPhone.”