It’s hard enough breaking up with too many texts, but imagine receiving an AI summary of a breakup to tell you the bad news. That’s what happened to an iPhone user with Apple Intelligence, who is now single and ready to mingle.
One of the biggest features of Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1 is Notification Summaries, which summarize messages, emails, and other popups into easily digestible bullet points. Unfortunately, however, Apple Intelligence doesn’t quite get the point when it comes to having a touch of humanity.
User @spreen_co took to X and shared a photo of his ex-girlfriend breaking up with him. The summary from Apple Intelligence reads: “No longer a relationship; wants stuff from the apartment.”
He continued with, “Yes, this was real… Yes, it happened yesterday… Yes, it was my birthday.” The tweet went viral with 3.8 million views, which may soften the blow, but won’t replace his relationship.
for anyone wondering what an Apple Intelligence summary of a breakup text looks like pic.twitter.com/4C0K1GcrbFOctober 10, 2024
Summaries of Apple Intelligence notifications
Apple Intelligence alert summaries are incredibly useful when they work, but they lack human empathy and often end up on the wrong end. I’ve written about notification summaries in the past, calling the tool the “one Apple Intelligence feature you’ll want to turn off right away.”
In my testing, the funniest examples have cropped up when multiple notifications of the same thing pile up. For example, my Ring doorbell notifications are often summarized as “5-7 people at your front door,” which is pretty hilarious considering it sounds like a burglary is about to occur.
If it works, though, notification summaries will likely be the most useful Apple Intelligence feature to grace your iPhone when iOS 18.1 launches later this month. Condensing information to give you a quick overview of things like a shopping list from your partner or a date and time to meet someone is where the feature excels, it’s just a shame it doesn’t quite understand what it means to to be human.
