Apple's AI Writing Tools are Not Ready for Primetime

Software
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I experimented this morning with Apple’s new AI-related writing tools. I’m not impressed.

For example, in Apple Pages, the writing tool scans a section of text and then rewrites it, offering to replace the original text with the suggested version. There is no indicator of what was changed, so one must meticulously read the original text and compare it to the recommended replacement. Spotting the proposed changes in moderate to longer-length text is nearly impossible.

Apple’s writing tool needs much work before replacing Grammarly in my workflow.

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I’ve been playing with it since it first appeared in the betas. Indeed the lack of indication where it has made changes is a real annoyance, but I also found that asking it to rewrite more than a couple of paragraphs at a time usually caused it to make no changes at all. There seemed to be a size limitation. I haven’t tried it since the official release to see if that has changed.

The .2 beta gives the ability to tell it what you want it to do, rather than just being limited to what is on the buttons. And the ChatGPT integration is now enabled, for those who want to risk that.

Here, I told it to rewrite the above as a poem:

From betas first, I played with glee,

A tool of change, a mystery.

No sign of change, a hidden art,

Rewriting more, a broken start.

A size it seemed, a limiting grace,

I haven’t tried since official space.

The .2 beta, a new command,

Beyond the buttons, on the land.

ChatGPT’s touch, a risk to take,

A world of change, for goodness sake.

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iA Writer just released a blog post that highlights the very thing I encountered:

Outside of iA Writer, Apple’s not-quite-intelligent Intelligence misses a crucial step in the process. Depending on how it is implemented, you can compare what you wrote with what you generated in a little dialog. At some point though, Writing Tools will simply replace your original text. If you can’t reliably see at a glance what’s changed, you risk losing control over what you wrote. Yes, you can preview its output, but it’s not a clear way to track the differences.

Now and then, Writing Tools may change the meaning of your text even when it’s merely supposed to correct obvious mistakes. If you don’t have a photographic memory, you may end up with something that not only sounds like someone else—but also says something else entirely.

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We are in very early days. They are seeking feedback (thumbs up and thumbs down rating of changes as well as Feedback Assistant for anyone in a beta program). So I’m giving them my thoughts. These are early days of a quickly evolving technology. Next year this will all look very primitive!

Meanwhile I’m getting totally frustrated with the hearing aid feature. It’s confusing and I’m not even convinced it does anything. Probably needs another year to straighten that out as well.

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I’ve been somewhat underwhelmed too. However, I also noticed that Grammarly is also now using a LLM like ChatGPT as when I tested it recently the text sounded exactly like the typical AI produced vocabulary and style. I also noticed that when students use Grammarly, it now appears as AI generated in TurnItIn - it didn’t used to.

So, they are both significantly worse than the old Grammarly, which I found much better at writing than the new LLM version.

I’m using ProWritingAid now instead, which offers much better suggestions than the new Grammarly.

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My daughter, who is completing her masters, told me the same thing about Grammarly this evening. She said it was far less helpful than it used to be.

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I hope it can get there. I’ve been wanting a grammarly extension in Pages for ages.

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Interestingly, Apple’s writing tools work a little better in other apps, e.g., Mail, than in Pages. That said, Apple’s implementation still lags behind Grammarly’s. I’m hoping to replace Grammarly if and when Apple’s tools are “good enough.”

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I find two difficulties with Apple’s writing tools:

  1. It’s not aggressive enough in that it doesn’t find enough grammatical-type issues, and
  2. It doesn’t indicate the suggested changes and doesn’t allow for individual changes.

If Apple writing tools doesn’t significantly change, I won’t be using it much.

I don’t know that I agree that Grammarly “is not as helpful” as it used to be. I think it takes more judgment by the user to pick and choose between Grammarly’s suggestions. It has become more like an LLM in that it offers more suggested rewrites instead of just grammatical and spelling issues.

I haven’t attempted to fiddle with them yet, but I know that Grammarly does have settings that can help to direct the program regarding what type of “corrections” it suggests. Perhaps that would help the over-suggestion/rewriting tendency.

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This is my biggest gripe.

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I agree. I don’t want the cognitive overload of reading the Apple-suggested text, comparing it with the original, identifying what Apple wants to change, and deciding whether to make the suggested change. Too much hassle for what should be simple.

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What is difficult for me to understand is how this was released without that feature. The new AI features were used and tested within Apple prior to release, and they were also tested by beta users. How is this not corrected? I’m not expecting perfection in a 1.0 release of AI, but this omission doesn’t make sense to me.

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I don’t have access to Apple Intelligence, but I occasionally use ChatGPT to offer rewriting suggestions. It often reorders, rewords and removes (if I ask it to shorten), so displaying what it has changed wouldn’t really work.

Is Apple just doing grammar checking?

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If Apple follows its pattern, it implements these changes gradually and only up to a C+/B range to meet the greatest possible audience. I use Grammarly periodically (provided for me). Its grammar check is very good and thorough. If I had to pay for it, I might possibly pass it by.

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I just had a doctor’s appointment, and as soon as introductions were done, he asked if it was okay to record our conversation. I said yes, and he pulled out an iPhone. He said the AI is helpful for getting everything down and creating notes based on the visit. I did not follow up with any questions about what apps he was using, or if he was even on 18.1, but I thought it was interesting and immediately thought of this forum.

The more I use AI, the more unimpressed I am, and haven’t found a use for it as much as I try. Kind of neat to see a real-world use though. Kicking myself for not following up with questions.

(Edited because macOS writing’s messed up. :slight_smile: )

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Hopefully your doctor wasn’t using OpenAI’s Whisper:

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No surprise that we’ve been sold yet another AI hype that fails.

Katie

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Did Apple really hype AI? I kinda thought they’d under-hyped compared to everyone else.

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They mentioned it several times at the last event and then have done a series of interviews before 18.1 came out talking about it even more. A lot of their talk since WWDC has been around AI and improving their hardware to use it. They have certainly hyped it, although they keep stressing it’s going to take over a year to roll everything out.

Every tech company is hyping AI though, Apple is no different, they were just late to the party. It seems to be what investors want to hear, but I think most users are unimpressed (this forum is the most pro-AI place I have visited on the net).

Photos “Clean up” is impressive, if that counts as AI. I think Apple is calling it AI, but Photoshop has been doing it for years (although they have made it AI focused as well).

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That doesn’t sound like hype to me. I wonder if we have different interpretations of the word?

I’ve not thought about it before but hype - to me - means exaggeration or hyperbole.