Dumb things my iPhone does (and that I do) that could be fixed by AI

It increasingly feels like AI is everywhere. And often with its beady eye on the interesting stuff humans do. We’re told it’ll soon write all the movies – but not clean up after everyone’s watched Humans Must Be Eradicated, directed by ChatGPT 666. Hmm. Maybe we’ve got our priorities all wrong with this AI thing…

Anyway, despite being a writer myself – and therefore at risk of being lobbed into a skip once our publisher realises how quickly they could type ‘600 words of tech ranting, laced with snark’ into an AI prompt – I’m slowly coming round to the notion of more AI, not less. And although Apple famously won’t use the term ‘AI’ during its fancy tech events, rumours suggest iOS 18 will be packed full of the stuff.

Which is good, because I’m hoping upcoming AI advances will fix some of the dumb things my iPhone does. And some of the dumb things I do. In short, I want iPhone AI to sort things like these:

Make my calendar make sense

I recently had to pick up my in-laws from the airport. Calendar had extracted the time. And an hour beforehand, I received an alert saying I could reach the airport in 53 minutes. All good? Ish. Even with my own flights, Calendar does nothing more. Surely iPhone AI should work out when I’m the one going on a flight and block out events accordingly in my calendar? An hour for ‘get to the airport’. Half an hour for ‘inexplicably place every piece of tech I own into about four hundred tiny trays’. 90 minutes for ‘stare at the most depressing cheese sandwich in the world while sat at a departure gate’. That would be helpful.

Actually sync my photos

I shoot loads of photos and screen grabs for work. Sometimes, I’m even productive and do this first-thing, rather than in a panic eleven seconds before a deadline hits. My iPhone does not care. I’ll stare at my Mac, awaiting the appearance of the images in Photos. And then realise, yet again, any iPhone AI that does exist at this point just ‘paused’ sync to save battery life.

Fair enough if this was after an evening out, when I’m on the train home and the battery klaxon’s wailing. But when I’m working from home, with the iPhone on 93% charge, and have a deadline in Calendar called ‘Stuff article due today or Dan will take my knees’, sticking with that ‘sync paused’ thing isn’t helping anyone. (Except Dan to grow his freelancer knee collection.)

Make allowances for sausage thumbs

Not everything is my iPhone’s fault. Here’s one that’s mine: I’m a terrible touchscreen typist. Also, I have multiple keyboards live, including Spanish (because I’m learning Spanish) and Icelandic (because I should be learning Icelandic). I’m seemingly as likely to hit the ‘switch language’ globe as any other key when I smash out words. Maybe iPhone AI can help. When I’m clearly typing an entire sentence in English, it could recognise my sausage thumbs have again erred and quietly switch back. I’d even forgive this happening alongside a smug ‘ahem’ alert sound.

Stop toggling focus modes at the worst time

I understand I’m not alone in this frustrating iPhone experience – and one that’s likely already driven by AI. But I’ll happily be immersed in a live online game, and yet Game focus won’t have triggered. So I’ll end up swatting away a barrage of notifications and horribly losing. (Which is totally down to the distractions, not my ineptitude.) 

Hours later, I’ll wonder why I’ve not received any notifications, only for my iPhone to now be sitting there in Game focus – or some other focus I didn’t know existed. Although perhaps I shouldn’t want better AI for this particular feature, because if my iPhone were ever to read this article, it’d presumably enter Huff focus and refuse to ever do anything for me again.

• Now read: Humane’s AI Pin won’t replace your smartphone – but I think phones should steal its best ideas