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How to turn off Apple Intelligence on your iPhone

39 points by laktak 2y ago

throwaway314155 2y ago
tl;dr - Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri > Disable top toggle labeled "Apple Intelligence" I would be surprised if most iPhone users couldn't figure this out themselves so my personal hunch is this article is mostly clickbait for anti-AI folks who already have these features disabled. In particular, because the only way to disable it is to have opted in to it in the first place and that flow is very similar to the disable flow.
- wetpaws 2y ago
  [dead]
- weikju 2y ago
  Yeah but, cynically, in todays age people put questions in a search or LLM instead of reading docs/manuals let alone reading what’s in their screen… so this article will be useful for them till they can out-SEO’d by Link farms. Let alone reading what’s on their screen when they enable features, promptly forgetting they enabled it, thus asking how to disable them… Ok enough. Have a good day :)
- Over2Chars 2y ago
  So many opt ins are deceptively worded (e.g. "would you like this personalized just for you?") or deceptively bundled, 'if you want feature Y, you need to enable X', I could see people opting in without fully knowing what they're doing.
  - alt227 2y ago
    The deliberate grouping of Apple Intelligence & Siri together in one menu makes me feel like if I disable AI with that main switch at the top then I will also disable Siri, and I am an IT professional who understands these things. They dont need to group the titles together like that, it feels deceptive. I feel like the average user will be put off disabling AI if they still want to use Siri like they always have.
- RandomBacon 2y ago
  I would be surprised if more than 99% of iPhone users go through all of the settings. You and I might be knowledgeable enough to realize that we can turn such options off, but the vast, vast, vast majority of people are not.
  - throwaway314155 2y ago
    I'll just reiterate: you had to find the setting at least once (because these features are opt-IN) for the need to disable it to ever occur. Sure. Lots of people are too tech-unsavvy to figure that out. But those same people won't be googling how to do it. They'll just give up and ask their kid to do it for them or something.
netdevphoenix 2y ago
My worry with the current generation of LLMs branded as "AI" that at some point in the future long time after LLMs become fully obsolete, a new kind of AI tech will come along and it will be difficult to brand it because "AI" was already used before (see LLMs) and has negative snake-oil connotations. It's like humans calling the period they live in "contemporary". It make as little sense for stone age people to do it, as it did for medieval people and as it does for us. We need to start thinking more about the future and not the 10-years from now future but the 300 years from now future.
- schmorptron 2y ago
  I think that's the least of the problems, if there's anything we're good at it's adding superlatives to product names. You can call it Hyperintelligence, Quantum Intelligence. Although you have a point with the snake-oil connotations, which is hilarious because it's only because of overpromising. The tech that LLMs are today is absolutely mindblowing and not something I could have predicted 5 years ago in the days of GPT2.
- lovich 2y ago
  No need to worry, we’ve gone through this several times before https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter
- Over2Chars 2y ago
  AI has survived as a name for a few decades now. My prediction, based on no evidence or theory other than "the future will be like today, only in the future" is that AI will be called AI 300 years from now. Do you feel better now?
- thih9 2y ago
  Apple is exceptionally good at this, they have their own names for everything – from retina display to spatial computing, including calling AI “apple intelligence”. But this is popular outside of apple too, e.g. some years ago we decided to call servers “the cloud”. That new AI tech might be branded as something else but I doubt it would be a problem.
- 2y ago
Over2Chars 2y ago
I suspect disabling this is absolutely the right thing to do. But I'm curious, has anyone really made any effort to test this so-called AI first to see if it's at all useful, or lives up to any level of expectation? Or is there some a priori evil element to justify this (Tim Cook slurping up all your data and using it for training and advertising without consent or opt out) that I don't know about?
- dharma1 2y ago
  It’s mostly useful as a hands free shortcut to get replies from chatgpt. Beyond that it’s useless All the promises of integrating deeply into the OS and have APIs directly into apps so you can use natural language to get any app to do stuff for you is vaporware So much potential but none of it delivered yet, I hope it will change soon
  - Over2Chars 2y ago
    Interesting. Thanks for the information.
- ajdude 2y ago
  Unfortunately it seems pretty half-baked and rushed out just so they can check the box without being as useful as it could be. Here is the best commentary that I've read on the subject from someone who works regularly in generative AI: https://xeiaso.net/blog/2025/squandered-holy-grail/ https://xeiaso.net/blog/2025/squandered-holy-grail/
  - snapetom 2y ago
    This is such an infuriating problem with these companies. Generative AIs hold promise, but they all rushed to inject these features, which are in its infancy, directly interfering with the user experience. In iOS, if you search in settings for something in the realm of Apple Intelligence. The results will be dominated by Apple Intelligence results, which is a good chance that that's not what you want. On Amazon.com, they threw their entire review history into Rufus, and the results are often are just plain outdated and wrong. It's still garbage in, garbage out with generative AI, and these companies have completely ignored that.
throw5959 2y ago
How to turn on Apple Intelligence on EU iPhone?
pupppet 2y ago
My concern with Apple Intelligence is Apple devs being forced to shoehorn AI into the UX of a wide variety of apps, I’m not looking forward to the fallout from the added complexity.
altairprime 2y ago
The Verge article is missing a setting under Apps > Mail > Summarize to disable.

39 points by laktak 2y ago

tl;dr - Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri > Disable top toggle labeled "Apple Intelligence" I would be surprised if most iPhone users couldn't figure this out themselves so my personal hunch is this article is mostly clickbait for anti-AI folks who already have these features disabled. In particular, because the only way to disable it is to have opted in to it in the first place and that flow is very similar to the disable flow.

wetpaws 2y ago
[dead]
weikju 2y ago
Yeah but, cynically, in todays age people put questions in a search or LLM instead of reading docs/manuals let alone reading what’s in their screen… so this article will be useful for them till they can out-SEO’d by Link farms. Let alone reading what’s on their screen when they enable features, promptly forgetting they enabled it, thus asking how to disable them… Ok enough. Have a good day :)
Over2Chars 2y ago
So many opt ins are deceptively worded (e.g. "would you like this personalized just for you?") or deceptively bundled, 'if you want feature Y, you need to enable X', I could see people opting in without fully knowing what they're doing.
- alt227 2y ago
  The deliberate grouping of Apple Intelligence & Siri together in one menu makes me feel like if I disable AI with that main switch at the top then I will also disable Siri, and I am an IT professional who understands these things. They dont need to group the titles together like that, it feels deceptive. I feel like the average user will be put off disabling AI if they still want to use Siri like they always have.
RandomBacon 2y ago
I would be surprised if more than 99% of iPhone users go through all of the settings. You and I might be knowledgeable enough to realize that we can turn such options off, but the vast, vast, vast majority of people are not.
- throwaway314155 2y ago
  I'll just reiterate: you had to find the setting at least once (because these features are opt-IN) for the need to disable it to ever occur. Sure. Lots of people are too tech-unsavvy to figure that out. But those same people won't be googling how to do it. They'll just give up and ask their kid to do it for them or something.

netdevphoenix 2y ago

My worry with the current generation of LLMs branded as "AI" that at some point in the future long time after LLMs become fully obsolete, a new kind of AI tech will come along and it will be difficult to brand it because "AI" was already used before (see LLMs) and has negative snake-oil connotations. It's like humans calling the period they live in "contemporary". It make as little sense for stone age people to do it, as it did for medieval people and as it does for us. We need to start thinking more about the future and not the 10-years from now future but the 300 years from now future.

schmorptron 2y ago
I think that's the least of the problems, if there's anything we're good at it's adding superlatives to product names. You can call it Hyperintelligence, Quantum Intelligence. Although you have a point with the snake-oil connotations, which is hilarious because it's only because of overpromising. The tech that LLMs are today is absolutely mindblowing and not something I could have predicted 5 years ago in the days of GPT2.
lovich 2y ago
No need to worry, we’ve gone through this several times before https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter
Over2Chars 2y ago
AI has survived as a name for a few decades now. My prediction, based on no evidence or theory other than "the future will be like today, only in the future" is that AI will be called AI 300 years from now. Do you feel better now?
thih9 2y ago
Apple is exceptionally good at this, they have their own names for everything – from retina display to spatial computing, including calling AI “apple intelligence”. But this is popular outside of apple too, e.g. some years ago we decided to call servers “the cloud”. That new AI tech might be branded as something else but I doubt it would be a problem.
2y ago

Over2Chars 2y ago

I suspect disabling this is absolutely the right thing to do. But I'm curious, has anyone really made any effort to test this so-called AI first to see if it's at all useful, or lives up to any level of expectation? Or is there some a priori evil element to justify this (Tim Cook slurping up all your data and using it for training and advertising without consent or opt out) that I don't know about?

dharma1 2y ago
It’s mostly useful as a hands free shortcut to get replies from chatgpt. Beyond that it’s useless All the promises of integrating deeply into the OS and have APIs directly into apps so you can use natural language to get any app to do stuff for you is vaporware So much potential but none of it delivered yet, I hope it will change soon
- Over2Chars 2y ago
  Interesting. Thanks for the information.
ajdude 2y ago
Unfortunately it seems pretty half-baked and rushed out just so they can check the box without being as useful as it could be. Here is the best commentary that I've read on the subject from someone who works regularly in generative AI: https://xeiaso.net/blog/2025/squandered-holy-grail/ https://xeiaso.net/blog/2025/squandered-holy-grail/
- snapetom 2y ago
  This is such an infuriating problem with these companies. Generative AIs hold promise, but they all rushed to inject these features, which are in its infancy, directly interfering with the user experience. In iOS, if you search in settings for something in the realm of Apple Intelligence. The results will be dominated by Apple Intelligence results, which is a good chance that that's not what you want. On Amazon.com, they threw their entire review history into Rufus, and the results are often are just plain outdated and wrong. It's still garbage in, garbage out with generative AI, and these companies have completely ignored that.

throw5959 2y ago

How to turn on Apple Intelligence on EU iPhone?

pupppet 2y ago

My concern with Apple Intelligence is Apple devs being forced to shoehorn AI into the UX of a wide variety of apps, I’m not looking forward to the fallout from the added complexity.

altairprime 2y ago

The Verge article is missing a setting under Apps > Mail > Summarize to disable.