With iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS 15.2 (in beta at the time of this writing), Apple's AI-powered image generation app, Image Playground, is finally available (in beta, though). It's available as a standalone app as well as within the Messages app on your device. While during the WWDC keynote this year, the functionality was also announced to be available in other apps like Notes, Freeform, Pages, etc., currently, it isn't.

Getting Access

  1. As soon as you upgrade your device, you'll find Image Playground among your apps that features a dog (or a cat, perhaps) in a bubble as the app icon.
  2. Currently, you need to request access to the app. Open the app and you'll get the option to 'Request Early Access'; click on it.
  1. Once you're on the waitlist, it can take a few days for you to get access.

While you should get a notification when you're granted access (according to the chatter on the Internet), I wasn't. I just happened to check the app periodically and after a few days, I had been granted access.

Using the app

  1. The app has a simple interface. At the bottom, you'll find a prompt bar where you can describe the image you want the app to create in words.
  1. Add a prompt, like an 'otter holding a drink in hands', and click Enter. Apple Intelligence will get to work right away, producing a set of images.
  1. Just above the prompt bar, you'll find suggestions you can add to your prompt. These can be added to your text prompt or used by themselves. Go to the right for suggestions for themes, costumes, accessories, and places.
  2. Clicking on the suggestions adds it to the Image Playground bubble right away and as you add more suggestions, the changes start processing in real time.
  1. Click on the right arrow (or swipe left on iPhone) to view more images. As mentioned above, Image Playground keeps generating images with changes in real-time as you add more elements/ descriptions. Since the processing is also done on the device, it keeps creating images as you navigate to the right.
  1. If you like an image, you can click on 'Done' in the top-right corner to save it to your Image Playground library. This would close the current image and take you to the app library.
  2. However, if you'd like to save the current image while still being able to browse the other images Apple Intelligence has generated or make further edits, you can also click on the 'three-dot' icon below the photo and select 'Save Image'. You also get other options like Copy and Share that will open the standard share sheet.
  1. You can also provide feedback to Apple using the thumbs-up and thumbs-down arrows at the bottom. Clicking on the thumbs-up button sends the feedback right away; however, if you click on the thumbs-down button, you'll need to provide additional feedback.

Photo styles

  1. Right next to the prompt bar, you'll see the options to choose a person, style, and photo from your gallery.
  2. Currently, you can choose between two styles in the Image Playground app – Animation and Illustration.
  1. Both image styles produce good-quality images but Animation produces images that look more 3D while Illustration produces plain 2D images.
Left: Animation. Right: Illustration.

When Apple showcased the feature at the WWDC this year, an additional style, Sketch, was also available. So, there's a chance it might be available in the future.

Personalized People Images

One of the best features of Image Playground is the ability to choose a person to feature in the photos. You can choose people from your photo gallery to create images of them in different scenarios. It's something Apple heavily focused on in their WWDC keynote, and rightly so.

With other tools, it can be really difficult to get personalized photos of people. And even with tools that you can create such photos, there's always a privacy concern since most such tools are cloud-based.

With all image processing being done on the device with the Image Playground, you don't have to worry about privacy even remotely. And the added convenience of being able to choose your closest friends or family members from the People tab just adds the cherry on top.

  1. Go to the 'People' option at the bottom and you'll see the list of people from your Photos app. Choose a person.
  1. You'll also be able to choose from a few of their photos to decide which likeness you best like as the starting point. Scroll through the different photos provided by Apple Intelligence or choose one yourself by clicking the 'Choose Other Photo' button. Click on 'Done' and the app will use this photo as a reference for the person going forward; however, you can edit it later at any time.
  1. After choosing the person, you can select from suggestions or add a description.
  1. Instead of choosing a person, you can also choose a general appearance where you can select a skin tone and other aspects of the appearance. But you need to provide additional details to get what you want with this option.

Use Photos

You can also upload any photo to use as a base when creating any image in Image Playground. Uploaded photo can be of a person, animal, place, etc.

With the ability to upload photos of a person, you can generate an image for people other than the ones in your People gallery. However, Image Playground does require that the images uploaded should have a close-up of the face. Otherwise, it shows a message asking you to undo the request.

When using animals or places as a reference, it's not a problem. But it doesn't always capture the image correctly.

Also, for too vague images, like an image of the beach or a fawn-like lamp that I had in my gallery, Image Playground was "unable to use the description".

Image Playground in Messages

Image Playground is also available in the Messages app from the app drawer.

  1. Go to a chat and click on the '+' icon in the bottom left.
  1. Then, select 'Image Playground' from the menu.
  1. You'll see your Image Playground library. Click on the '+' icon and the Image Playground app experience will open.
  1. The experience in the Messages app is the same as the standalone app. The one difference is that the suggestions might include context from the messages in the open conversation. Also, during my testing, the 'People' tab was empty for some reason and the only option available was 'Appearance'.
  1. Create the image and tap on 'Done'. The image will be saved to your library and loaded in the text field, ready to be sent.

Image Playground Limitations

As with most AI image generators out there, Image Playground has its own set of limitations. Some of them are intentional on Apple's part while others just seem like the shortcomings you have to make do when using LLMs.

You can see unexpected results when generating images using Image Playground, such as an otter with two tails (in multiple tries, it generated otters with two tails).

It cannot understand any typo and will say 'Language unsupported' at even the slightest mistake, which other image generation models can clearly understand.

Sometimes, it needs more context than other image generators even with simple requests. For example, I tried generating an image for sizzling brownie, a dessert with brownie, vanilla ice cream, and hot chocolate sauce that's popular in India. However, Image Playground only created a literal image of a brownie that has some steam on top to indicate the sizzle. ChatGPT, on the other hand, can generate the dessert with the same prompt, i.e., sizzling brownie.

When it comes to the style of images, Image Playground cannot create any style other than animation and illustration. While Apple intentionally doesn't want to allow the generation of photorealistic images, they could have added more categories. However, you've got to give it to Apple. Even if the style of images is limited, the images it does generate are pretty amazing in their quality.

Also, when it comes to images of people, it also cannot generate any other images than portrait-style photos of the person with only the top half of the body. So, if you wanted to create photos of a person doing any activity, you're severely out of luck.

It also struggles with multiple objects. For example, I wanted to create a photo of my friend with an otter, but all of a sudden, Image Playground forgot what an otter looks like. When it did figure that out, it ignored all the other directions in the prompt.

That also happens a lot. As the request tends to get slightly longer, Image Playground ignores a lot of stuff. Also, a lot of times, the app tells you to include a person even when you don't want to. For instance, I used the 'Fantasy' theme from the app suggestions and wanted to add a Princess to the setting, but it wouldn't process the request until I added a person or modified my request.

It also struggles to create images with words in it, like most AI software; even something as simple as 'Happy birthday' proved too much for Apple Intelligence.

There are also certain words and phrases that Image Playground will not use. This includes any copyrighted content, or content with violence, drugs, etc. Requests with words like alcohol or plain smoking weren't denied, though.

Image Playground is a good tool but it's not a professional image generator by any means. It seems just like a tool you would use to send some fun pictures of your friends and family in different attires. Even without access to the tool, it's nothing special you're missing out on, in my opinion.

Notably, with iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2, users also have access to Genmoji and Image Wand; however, they are not yet available on macOS Sequoia 15.2.