If you own an iPhone 15, iPhone 14 Pro, or an earlier model, you must be vexed by Apple's decision to not release, even a few, Apple Intelligence features to these devices. Even if you wouldn't have used those features had your device received them, being left out is sure to give everyone a case of FOMO.
However, if you are thinking of spending your hard-earned money to upgrade your iPhone just for the sake of Apple Intelligence, hold your horses. What if you could get similar features on your existing device? While there's no official way to get Apple Intelligence on any device that does not sport an A17 or later chip, you can get Apple Intelligence-like features on your device with tons of apps available in the App Store. Sounds intriguing, doesn't it? In any case, it won't hurt to try before making any decisions.
Writing Tools and Summarization
Writing Tools are one of the main features spearheading the Apple Intelligence troops. With Writing Tools, which should be called Rewriting Tools in my opinion, you can rewrite your text in different tones, proofread it, or get summaries/ key points.
While using apps like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc. you can get any writing assistance on your iPhone you need, one of the main allure of Writing tools is that it can be accessed anywhere on your iPhone without having to hop between apps.
You can get similar functionality by using an AI keyboard that offers similar features. Writely AI is one such app that brings very similar functionality to your iPhone and since it's a keyboard, you can use it anywhere you can use the keyboard.
With the Writely AI keyboard, you can transform any writing with the help of AI; the app uses ChatGPT API for AI tasks. While there are differences from the Writing Tools interface, you get the basic functionality.
With the Writely keyboard (which you'll need to add to your keyboards and give complete access), you can spell check and paraphrase existing content, similar to Apple's Writing Tools. But you can also write new text with a prompt, reply to any message, or ask the AI to continue writing based on your text. The latter includes features that you won't even get with Writing Tools.
- To add Writely, go to the App Store and install the app. Open the app and go through the initial onboarding screens and setup (like choosing a plan or a free trial; you can choose the free trial, cancel it from settings, and continue using the keyboard with limited features).
- Next, you need to navigate to
Settings>General>Keyboard. - Go to 'Keyboards'.
- Tap on 'Add new keyboard'.
- Select 'Writely' from the options.
- Next, tap on 'Writely' to tweak its settings.
- Turn on the toggle for 'Allow Full Access'.
- To use Writely after you've added it as a keyboard, you can access it anywhere by tapping and holding the 'Globe' icon and selecting 'Writely' from the options.
- Tap on the 'Magic wand' icon to access Writely options.
- You'll get all the options the keyboard provides; tap on any to use it.
- The keyboard also has options to make the text long or short or choose from a gamut of tones when paraphrasing the text. You can also translate it into another language.
While the app has a subscription-based model, it offers a 3-day trial for full access. You get a limited number of queries without the subscription but there's a workaround that currently lets you use the keyboard even after you run out – switching to another keyboard and coming back to Writely.
Now, the one thing Writely is missing is Summaries.
But there are also many other alternatives, like using ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude directly but adding a keyboard like Writely makes it as convenient and widely available as Writing Tools. Another keyboard you can use is Grammarly.
While Grammarly requires a Pro plan as well for complete access to all AI tools, there are a certain number of prompts available with a free account that is reset every month; Summaries are one of the features you can use.
For summaries of webpages, you can use an alternative tool like Arc Search. Arc Search, the iOS browser from The Browser Company of New York, has a handy 'Pinch to Summarize' feature that can summarize just about any web page within a matter of seconds.
Left: Use 'Summarize it' in Grammarly keyboard. Right: Use 'Summarize it' in Arc Search
Image Generation
Another feature Apple Intelligence brings to compatible iPhones is the ability to generate images using Image Playground and Genmojis.
There are many image generators available that you can use to get a similar experience. For simple image generation, you can use free tools like the ChatGPT app (limited image generation credits) or Microsoft's Image Creator or Designer in Copilot. Both use the DALL-E 3 model from OpenAI.
- On your iPhone, you can install the Bing app to access Image Creator.
- Then, enter your prompt, and Image Creator will generate the image for it.
- Alternatively, you can access Copilot from the Bing app.
- Then, ask it to create images for you (both interfaces generate the images using the same model, use the same boosts and you can find images generated using Copilot in the 'Creations' tab of Image Creator.).
I prefer the Copilot interface because it also lets you further edit and even reimagine parts of the generated image with AI.
Pallav Pathak
You can also use Gemini (from the Google app) or Meta AI in various Meta apps for image generation.
To create personalized images of yourself, one of the easiest ways has to be Meta AI.
Meta AI is available in Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp, and most people are bound to have at least one of these apps on their iPhones. Their new 'Imagine Me' feature can create images of you in any scenario. It's quite easy to use and only requires you to set it up once where you'll need to scan your face using your iPhone's camera so the AI can create your likeness in superficial scenarios. The feature is free and while it is currently only available in the USA, Meta plans to roll it out to everyone.
Sakshi Garg
If you're outside of the US, you can try a tool like Adobe Firefly where you can upload reference images to influence the generated image's composition and style. You'll still need to work on your prompt as the image alone won't suffice, but it still works quite nicely. You can use Adobe Firefly by going to their website, and each user gets some free monthly credits.
Pallav Pathak
Photo Clean-Up Tool
Apple Intelligence also powers a clean-up tool in the Photos app that lets you remove unwanted objects from your photos.
But there are already many tools available that allow you to erase objects from your photos. I find the easiest way to use the feature on the iPhone with the Google Photos app. Google introduced Magic Eraser quite a while back and recently upgraded it to Magic Editor. The tool is available to all Google Photos users for free.
- Go to Google Photos and open the photo you want to edit.
- Tap on 'Edit' at the bottom.
- Then, tap on 'Magic Eraser'. If you can't find it right away, go to 'Tools' first.
- Magic Eraser will automatically find suggestions for removing people and objects from the background. Tap on 'Erase all' to erase suggested objects or on 'X' to ignore the suggestions and manually remove objects by circling or brushing over them.
- Then, tap 'Done' to save the changes.
Custom Memory Movies
iOS creates memory movies which are a delightful way to rediscover your memories. Apple Intelligence brings an additional layer to this feature where you can create your own memory movies with simple prompts.
Now, creating memory montages is not difficult these days but it does require effort. Custom memory movies are great because they take out that effort.
You can get a similar functionality with Google Photos on your non-Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone. While it's nowhere near as versatile as the custom memory movies feature, it falls somewhere in that realm.
With Google Photos' 'Highlight video' option, you can specify people, dates, or words like "birthday" and the app will whip up a quick memory movie.
Pallav Pathak
The major difference in using any of these alternatives for Apple Intelligence features is the fact that they are all cloud-based services. And while you can get similar functionality, none of them would be able to provide the privacy that Apple has brought to Apple Intelligence tools with on-device processing and its proprietary cloud service.
However, you also have to consider the fact that Apple Intelligence tools aren't even available if you upgrade to iPhone 15 Pro or above right now. And even when they get available, it'll be some time before they're completely refined. So, instead of ditching your older iPhone right now, you can stick with the alternatives and consider upgrading next year.
Member discussion