New iPhones updates are automatically enabling AI-powered Apple Intelligence functionality, even for people who already switched it off. It’s not clear if this is a bug or intended behavior, but either way, it’s getting to be annoying.
Apple just released the iOS 18.3.2 update for iPhones, which is mainly a bug fix update to address a security vulnerability in Safari’s WebKit rendering engine. However, the update also has an unintended side effect. According to user reports, it’s automatically enabling Apple Intelligence, which is normally an opt-in setting. There is an Apple Intelligence splash screen that appears after updating, with a ‘Continue’ button as the only option, which enables the feature.
This isn’t the first time this has happened. The previous iOS 18.3.1 update also automatically enabled Apple Intelligence, even for people who previously turned it off. If this is a bug, then it’s a bug that has now stuck around after at least one update. I haven’t noticed this issue myself, since I only have a base model iPhone 15 without hardware support for Apple Intelligence. There is also at least one report of it happening on a Mac, after its similar update to macOS 15.3.2, but most of the complaints are coming from iPhones.
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This Tiny Inconvenience Made Me Turn Off Apple Intelligence
Apple Intelligence was promised as a game-changing feature that would transform my iPhone for the better. As with most AI products, though, the reality was so lackluster that it only took a tiny inconvenience to make me turn it off entirely.
Apple Intelligence has been a controversial feature since it was first revealed in June 2024. There are a whole lot of people who don’t want to touch anything related to generative AI, due to ethical issues with its training materials, concerns about power consumption for AI model training, and other problems. Apple Intelligence can also use several gigabytes of storage, since it uses an on-device large language model (LLM), so some people might want to leave it off just to have more room for photos, videos, games, and other data.
There’s also the problem that Apple Intelligence is just not that useful for most people. I know the functionality I was most excited for was a revamped Siri assistant, but the promised next-generation Siri has now been delayed several times, and might not ever actually materialize. Apple Intelligence also broke notifications on my Mac when it was first released. I personally don’t want to use the Writing Tools, AI image generators, or most of the other functionality, though the subject line email summaries in Mail are occasionally helpful.
Even if this isn’t a bug, it does remind me of how Microsoft has handled Windows updates for the past few years, especially on Windows 11. When your PC is updated, Windows will often ask you to “finish setting up” your computer, which usually means changing the default browser to Microsoft Edge and modifying other settings. Microsoft has now been legally forced to stop doing that in the European Union, but in the United States and other countries without laws like the EU’s Digital Markets Act, it can still happen.
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How to Use Apple Intelligence Writing Tools on iPhone, iPad and Mac
Writing Tools are now available on compatible iPhones, iPads, and Macs.
Hopefully, this is just a bug that Apple is taking too long to fix, and not a permanent change to how updates are handled across iPhone, Mac, and iPad devices. It’s important that the devices we buy actually respect our settings, and that’s something Microsoft and other companies have repeatedly ignored in favor of growing the userbase for unrelated apps and services. I’d hate to see Apple go down the same road.
Source: MacRumors, Paul Haddad (Mastodon)
