Key Highlights –
- Real-time Event Translation across Messages, FaceTime, and Phone calls with AirPods Pro 3 compatibility
- Screen content search and action capabilities with ChatGPT integration for deeper insights
- First AI-powered fitness coach analyzing workout data for personalized spoken motivation
- Developers can integrate the Apple on-device language model into their applications starting this year.
Apple has released iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and visionOS 26 onto eligible devices, tagging the innovations as “new Apple Intelligence features.” However, while Apple sees these features as game changers, closer scrutiny reveals Apple’s attempt to catch up in an AI race where its competitors have crossed the finish line.
I hope they upgrade Apple Intelligence with iOS 26.
— AIconic (@ashuklax) September 15, 2025
Apple’s Latest AI Push: Better Late Than Never?
At the core of the features lies Live Translation, which facilitates real-time language translation across Message, FaceTime, and Phone calls. In-person conversations using AirPods Pro 3 can be translated through on-device processing. The system also automatically translates typed responses in the Messages app and provides live captions for FaceTime calls while maintaining the voice of the person speaking.
Visual Intelligence has had some fairly significant improvements. One can now use it to search content shown on the iPhone screen across Google and integrated apps like eBay, Poshmark, and Etsy. Objects can be highlighted to find similar objects online, and with the integration of ChatGPT, users can contextualize questions about the content on their screen. This feature also summarizes and translates text and extracts calendar events from flyers with a single tap.
One of the most innovative additions is likely Workout Buddy: a fitness experience that analyzes workout data and fitness history, providing dynamic spoken motivation throughout exercise delivery. The AI uses data from heart rate, pace, distance, and Activity rings to formulate comments in real time, processed with a text-to-speech model trained on Fitness+ trainer voices.
Playing Catch-Up in the AI Game
It is, however, these “revolutionary” features that bring forth the stark reality that Apple is trailing far behind Android competitors. Much before, Google’s Pixel 10 series with AI features had been launched in August 2025, imparting very similar, yet somehow more advanced and intuitive features. Magic Cue, Google’s proactive AI assistant, understands full context and suggests logical next steps, like automatically displaying reservation details during restaurant calls initiated from text messages.
Live Translation capability in Google Voice Translation allows the user to experience the translation in real-time as the program replicates user voice inflections and tones in the translated language, giving rise to more natural conversations. Apple’s implementation, although workable, doesn’t leverage this highly engineered voice replication technology that Google began to refine earlier this year.
The Pixel 10’s Daily Hub offers personalized morning briefings that integrate information from multiple apps into a unified interface, while Apple’s approach remains fragmented across various applications. Google Gemini Live 2.0 provides visual overlays that assist and identify real-world objects, complementing emotional voice detection that analyses the semantics of utterances, mapping voice responses to the perceived mood of the user, substantiating that Apple Visual Intelligence could only aspire to.
With innovations of camera AI from the forefront of Apple, moving into the domain of competition, Google’s Coach aids shooting with real-time advice powered by on-device Gemini, while ProRes Zoom lets you pitch in with usable 100x zoom, trumping all efforts from Apple’s computational photography.
The Apple Advantage – Polish Over Speed
Apple’s approach to AI integration has several advantages, which cannot be disregarded. The focus on privacy, with on-device processing and Private Cloud Compute, keeps user data protection levels intact, something many competitors have failed to achieve. The smooth transition through the Apple ecosystem, from iPhone to Mac to Apple Watch, is an experience hard to replicate on Android’s fractured landscape.
Apple’s recent silent release of two new AI models on Hugging Face points to significant behind-the-scenes development, hinting at more concrete AI abilities currently being developed. Historically, the company’s strategy of going the extra mile to perfect features meant that by the time features of emerging technologies are in general use, Apple usually comes late to the game but profits landslide.
Now launching in eight new languages, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish, Traditional Chinese, and Vietnamese, Apple Intelligence reinforces its commitment to global accessibility, with the on-device language model API available to third-party developers that may spur some interesting use cases.
Apple Intelligence’s Impressive Features, But Questionable Timing
The Apple Intelligence features of iOS 26 are technically prestigious and will surely uplift the user experience on Apple devices. For those using Apple products and who are deeply embedded in its ecosystem, these features are welcome additions that will make sure the company maintains its high standards concerning the user experience and privacy protection. But for those wishing to switch platforms or consider AI capabilities, Apple’s latest offering serves more as a confirmation that the company is aiming at closing this gap rather than leading the revolution in AI.
Whether in the longer run, Apple’s slow but purposeful methodology will yield better AI experiences remains an open question, but what iOS 26 makes clear is that even the biggest tech behemoth in the world is not immune to the need for catching up in the exponentially fast-paced arena of artificial intelligence.
