Apple Introduces AI-Powered Image Playground in iOS 18.2 Update

How to Use Apple's Updated Image Playground for Custom Photos

Apple has now brought AI capabilities to Image Playground with the latest update to iOS 18.2, which is fueled by Apple Intelligence. These features enable users to develop images with components such as the theme, text description, and personal pictures. It is compatible with other Apple platform forms like Messages, and hence, the experience is quite improved, especially when using Freeform. The modified Image Playground app delivers an adequate flow when generating images. The user interface allows combining up to six elements, including themes and descriptions or photos. To start creating an image, users can tap the Add button within the app and choose from several options: Furthermore, users can change the image's appearance or style. Animations or illustrations can be viewed in preview to see how they look after the final touches are made.

Learn how to use Apple Intelligence's 'Image Playground' | TechCrunch

Apple announced Wednesday that iOS 18.2 is now available, which comes with exciting image generation features, such as "Image Playground," Apple's image creation feature that creates cartoon-like images from text descriptions. Here's what you need to know about the Apple Intelligence feature, including what it is and how to use it. Image Playground is part of Apple Intelligence, a range of AI-driven tools from Apple. The new feature enables users to enter a text prompt, and the AI will produce an image that has a cartoon style. You can access Image Playground through the dedicated image creation app or via the Messages app by clicking the plus (+) button on the left side of the text box. The Playground app is available on the Home Screen; look for an icon that resembles a white cat or fox (or possibly another furry creature; we're not completely certain). Using Image Playground is fairly easy. Similar to other image generators, there's a text input area where you can describe an image and allow the AI to create it for you, such as "a dog blowing out birthday candles on a cake." If the results aren't exactly what you wanted, you can adjust the results with more detailed descriptions or choose one of Apple's recommendations. You'll see several image options to swipe through and select. You can also upload a photo of yourself, your pet, or a family member to get an AI-generated image of them, adding elements like a party hat for them to wear or a beach background. Additionally, you can change the art style. Image Playground is officially available on December 11 with the iOS 18.2 software update.

Create Custom Illustrations With Image Playground in iOS 18.2

Apple released iOS 18.2 on Dec. 11, more than a month after the tech company released iOS 18.1. The latest update brings a handful of new features to all iPhones, like a redesigned Mail app, and it also introduces more Apple Intelligence features to the iPhone 16 lineup, as well as to the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. If you have one of those iPhones, you'll also get a new app called Image Playground. This app uses Apple Intelligence to generate custom images on your device. You can choose from a list of suggested prompts, or you can enter your own description of an image and your iPhone will create the image. Here's what you need to know about Image Playground on iOS 18.2. Note that before you use Apple Intelligence, you have to request it for your iPhone. To do so, go to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri and tap Get Apple Intelligence. If you have a compatible iPhone with iOS 18.2, Image Playground will be a new app on your home screen. The icon looks like a kitten in a soap bubble. You can also access Image Playground in Messages. Here's how. 1. Open Messages. 2. Tap into a chat. 3. Tap the plus (+) symbol next to your text box. 4. Tap Image Playground. Image Playground uses Apple Intelligence on your iPhone and works like other AI image generators. Once you open the app, you can type a description of the image you want to create into the text box, or you can choose suggestions. (Check out CNET's guide to expert image prompting.) But you can't use too many suggested prompts or descriptors. You can only use up to six suggestions and descriptors at once. If you try to use more, Image Playground starts replacing older suggestions with newer ones. If you have too many suggestions or descriptors, you might get a message that says, "Try fewer concepts." You can add or remove these suggested prompts and descriptors at any time in the creation process as well. You can also create an image based on a photo in your Library. Tap the plus (+) symbol in the bottom right-hand corner of the app and then choose Choose Photo. This will let you use one of your own images as inspiration for Image Playground. You can also take a photo by tapping Take Photo and your new pic will be used. If you tap the plus (+) symbol in the bottom right-hand corner of the app, you can also choose the style your image will be generated in. There are two styles to choose from: the default, Animation, which is like a 3D image; and Illustration, which is more flat and cartoony. Apple might add more styles in the future. There's also an option to insert a generated person into these images. Tap the silhouette of a person in the bottom-right corner of Image Playground, tap Appearance twice, and you can generate people to insert into your images. Once you're happy with the image, tap Done in the top-right corner of the app and the image will save to the app. The next time you open Image Playground, you'll see all your saved images in one place. Tap the plus (+) symbol across the bottom of the screen to create a new image. After you've created an image in the app, you can go back and edit it further. Open the app and tap the generated image you want to edit, and tap Edit in the bottom-right corner of your screen. You can choose more suggestions, enter another descriptor or change the art style. In a very technical sense, yes, it will always make an image. Whether it's what you're looking for is another story. I entered the prompts "chef," "bowtie" and "volcano" and got an image of a kitchen that had grown a volcano on its countertop. Sadly, there was no chef or bowtie in sight -- maybe the volcano got them? Apple will likely continue to make improvements to Image Playground in the future so hopefully images will more closely match your descriptors. In the meantime, we have kitchen volcanoes.

iOS 18.2 adds a new app to the iPhone: What Image Plaground is and how to use it - Softonic

With the arrival of iOS 18.2 comes a novelty that changes the way we interact with images: Image Playground. This new application, which appears directly on our home screen after updating, allows us to create images like never before. A simple tool, fully integrated and with the magical capability of Apple Intelligence to create any image we can imagine in seconds. What exactly is Image Playground, and how can we make the most of it? Let's talk about all of it. Image Playground is an application that allows us to create custom images from text descriptions, photos from our photo library, or even ideas suggested by the system. The most interesting part is that the entire process is carried out directly on our iPhone, without relying on cloud connections or external services. This means we can generate as many images as we want and try out everything that comes to mind, always with the privacy that Apple guarantees in all its tools. Image Playground is not just a standalone app; its technology is also integrated into other applications within the Apple ecosystem, such as Messages, Keynote, Pages, and even Freeform. This allows us to use our creations in projects, presentations, or simply to send them directly to friends and family. The application offers us two main styles for our creations: Animation and Illustration. Here, the possibility of using our own photos as a base for creations stands out. We can select an image from our library and customize it with themes, costumes, and accessories, achieving unique and, above all, very original results. Do we want to see ourselves as astronauts in space? Or perhaps imagine our pet on a paradisiacal beach? With Image Playground, everything is possible and, moreover, very easy to do. Starting to use Image Playground is as simple as opening the app. The interface is really intuitive and with few options, allowing us to create images in just a couple of steps. Exactly, we will do it like this: The customization options are vast. From accessories like hats and glasses to specific themes like adventure or fantasy, Image Playground inspires us with suggestions selected by Apple editors. Even if we don't know where to start, we always have fresh ideas to explore. Don't see what we're looking for? The text field is there for us to add anything we want. With Image Playground and Apple Intelligence -- which already has an official release date in Europe -- iOS 18.2 introduces us to a tool that combines creativity, simplicity, and privacy, all in one place. A fantastic example of how Apple uses artificial intelligence to enhance our daily experience, without invading our privacy or complicating what we already know. Now, creating personalized images is not only easier than ever but also more fun.

Everything You Can Do With Apple's New AI Image Generator

Your iPhone can now generate AI images, but are the results any good? Now that the iPhone's iOS 18.2 update is out, you might have noticed a brand new app on your iPhone 15 Pro and 16 series device -- Image Playground. This is an AI image generator built into your iPhone, powered by Apple Intelligence. Image Playground also works on iPads and Macs that support Apple Intelligence, so even if you're on Android, you might still be able to use it. I've been running iOS 18.2 for a while thanks to the beta, and here's everything I've discovered about Apple's first dip into AI imagery. I struggle to come up with useful text prompts for AI image generators, but Image Playground makes this process easy. While you have the option to type a sentence or two to generate images, the app also lets you choose from a bunch of preset themes such as fantasy, chef, forest, etc. Each of these themes appears above the text box for your prompt. You can combine multiple themes and add a text prompt to quickly create a detailed suggestion for Image Playground to work with. You also have the option to hit the + button to choose photos from your library to upload as part of your prompt, and there's a profile icon that lets you select a person from your photo library as the image suggestion. Finally, you can generate images in either an "animation,""illustration," or "sketch" style. It's a bit limiting to have to select from these prebaked options, but it helps take away the complexity of describing a cohesive aesthetic over text, and the inability to generate photorealistic images should help prevent deepfakes. Overall, I was quite impressed with Image Playground's ability to generate images even without any custom text prompt, although I'm glad the option is there. It should make the tool approachable for experts and beginners alike. While trying out Image Playground, I was also impressed by its speed. I tried a few different prompts of varying degrees of complexity, and the app always generated an image within seconds. I was in a forest with spotty internet connectivity during some of these tests and even then, the app delivered its results quite fast. This is because a lot of the processing happens on-device, and as a result, my iPhone 16 Pro Max got slightly warm after generating around 15-20 images. But while you'll get your first result in record time, it's not the only one you'll get, since swiping left on your result will show more options as they're available. Typically, the app would quickly generate 3-5 results for me per prompt, with one of them usually being close enough to what I wanted. You can also try multiple styles per prompt. I used Image Playground to generate a picture of Lifehacker writer Khamosh Pathak attending an Indian wedding, and the final result worked best in the animation style. The illustration and sketch styles may work better for things like a profile picture on social media. If you're looking for a great use case for Image Playground, look no further than how it's been implemented in Notes. You can now draw a sketch in Notes and ask AI to turn it into art. This can be great to jot down your ideas and quickly pair them with images to help you visualize them. When you create a new note in the Notes app, just tap the pen icon in the tool palette and create a sketch. Then, tap the Image Wand icon (it looks like a stage magician's magic wand), circle the sketch, and optionally add a description to allow Apple Intelligence to turn your sketch into a more detailed AI image. It'll automatically start in the "sketch" style, but pressing the + icon next to the image will allow you to swap styles. If you don't add a description, Image Wand will pull context from your notes themselves to help generate your image. Similarly, you technically don't even need a base sketch, since Image Wand can also text from your notes to generate an image from scratch. Note that this feature works on iPhone and iPad, but not on Mac. Image Playground is also integrated into Messages, and allows you to generate images while you're chatting with someone. This feature works on your iPhone, iPad, and the Mac. Simply tap the + button in any chat and select Image Playground. Now, type a description and you'll be able generate an image from within Messages and send it right to your contact. This is probably the way I see myself using Image Playground most in the future -- for some harmless fun with friends. AI-generated images tend to appear impressive at first, but when you look closely, you'll sometimes be able to spot mistakes. In the aforementioned prompt involving Lifehacker's Khamosh Pathak, one of the results generated a hand with no nails and only three fingers. In other prompts, the app generated a knife with a handle so bent that it looked broken, and fantastical fruits that no human has ever seen. Apple clearly displays a warning that Image Playground may generate unexpected results, but the onus is on you to spot them. As long as you're using this app to generate fun photos for entertainment, it's really enjoyable. I just wouldn't use it for serious work.

How to use the iPhone's ChatGPT-powered image creator with Apple Intelligence

Apple is finally pushing Apple Intelligence out of the door in full. iOS 18.2 is finally available in non-beta form and with it come several long-awaited Apple Intelligence features. Apple improved Writing Tools and Siri with ChatGPT, incorporated visual intelligence tools through the camera, and added the ability to create your own custom Genmojis. But more excitingly, the company finally integrated an AI-powered image generation tool called Image Playground that fans have been patiently waiting for since it was first announced. If you're excited to put Image Playground to the test, you'll need to know a few things. First, in order to test out Image Playground, you'll need to have one of these iPhones: If you have an iPhone listed above, you're only a few short steps away from having fun in Apple's Image Playground. Here's how to download the iOS 18.2 update and what you can do with Image Playground once you have access. Before you can start playing around with Apple's AI image generation tool, you'll need to download the iOS 18.2 update. Here's how: 3. If your iPhone is compatible with the update, you should see a pop-up for iOS 18.2 on your screen. Tap Update Now to download and install the update immediately. With iOS 18.2 on your iPhone, you'll be able to use Image Playground in a dedicated app or throughout your iPhone apps, like Messages. According to Apple, Image Playground can "[generate] images in distinct styles, including Animation -- a modern, 3D-animated look -- and Illustration, which offers images with simple shapes, clear lines, and color blocking." To get familiar with Image Playground, check out the dedicated app first. 1. Launch the new Image Playground app that should be on your iPhone now. 2. Select your preferred style between Animation or Illustration. The former will create more playful, cartoon-y images, while the latter will create artistic images with more detail. 3. Select a theme if you'd like to further narrow down your image style. 4. Using the prompt box at the bottom of the screen, type what you want to see in an image. The more specific you can be, the better! 5. Play around with different themes and prompts until you create an image you love, and then tap Done at the top right to save your creation. You can also upload your own photos to Image Playground to create a fun AI-generated image of your pet, yourself, or a friend. Then, to access Image Playground while you're in the Messages app, simply tap the plus (+) icon while you're in a conversation and select Image Playground from the list. There are a lot of unique themes to play around with in Image Playground, so there's a world of possibilites. Best of luck!

Apple's Text-to-Image AI 'Image Playground' Targets Fun, not Photorealism

Apple Intelligence is settling into a semi-regular update schedule. Within iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2, Apple is bringing a slate of improvements to its AI technology and software platform, including the generative text-to-image tool, Image Playground. First unveiled at WWDC in June, Apple Intelligence hit iPhone, iPad, and Mac in late October with iOS/iPadOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1. The first iteration introduced an improved Siri, writing tools, and an AI-powered photo editing tool, Clean Up. With the latest software release, available now, Apple Intelligence adds a few more features Apple first showed off in June, including the ability to generate images with Image Playground, tools to create customized emojis ("Genmoji," in Apple's terminology), and Image Wand, a way to add images, illustrations, and sketches to notes. As promised, ChatGPT is also now integrated into Siri and Apple's AI-powered Writing Tools. Users can choose whether to enable ChatGPT and an OpenAI account is not required to use the ChatGPT tools within Apple Intelligence. Looking closer at Image Playground, it is a vastly different approach to text-to-image generative AI than most companies are taking. While major AI tech companies seek photorealism in their AI image generators, and Apple's smartphone competitors like Google and Samsung similarly want to develop AI that can mimic a real photo, Apple is instead focused on cartoony, unrealistic AI images. As PetaPixel wrote in September, Apple's general approach to artificial intelligence is a welcome change of pace for photographers. The company prioritizes reality and authenticity with its photo features. Where photography and AI meet is a concerning intersection for photographers. Some companies are trying to develop technology that erases the barrier between artificial and real, helping people use AI to craft images that look like photos, reducing the need for photography at all. The results can be dangerous and bad. Apple is adamant that a photo is "something that really, actually happened." The company's latest Apple Intelligence features bear this out. Image Playground is not a substitute for photography -- not even close. It is just a goofy way to make cartoony images. The most apparent place Apple Intelligence gets involved with photography is Clean Up, a highly limited tool built exclusively to remove distractions from photos. While this requires AI to generate new pixels, it is far from replacing real photography. So far, Apple Intelligence has its sights set squarely on productivity with things like Writing Tools and a more intelligent Siri and goofy fun with tools like Image Playground and Genmoji. In the trend-chasing world of AI, Apple is taking a different, slower, and more cautious approach with Apple Intelligence, which also applies to text-to-image technology.