Apple's forthcoming iOS 18 is loaded with a slew of artificial-intelligence-powered capabilities. The new mobile OS can rewrite your text messages, summarize emails, and identify objects in photos. But one of the most fun features is Image Playground, which generates cartoon-like illustrations based on a text prompt.
While Apple has shown examples of its output during its keynotes, demos, and product videos, we have yet to see a real-world example of an Image Playground character until now. Apple has shared with WIRED the first-ever example created by Image Playground that it’s shown outside of its pre-recorded keynotes and marketing materials.
This image of an adorable small dog smiling in front of a birthday cake wearing a party hat isn't just any random pup. It belongs to Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering at Apple, who created it for his wife in honor of their pet's recent birthday.
Federighi referenced the illustration during his interview with WIRED’s Lily Hay Newman about Apple’s Private Cloud Compute, the secure server environment the company built to handle AI task requests that cannot be processed on a consumer’s device. Apple reps shared it later. It's WIRED policy to clearly identify any AI-generated images we publish, so that’s why you see the watermark on the image.
Image Playground is debuting at a time when generative AI tools have been creeping into software from all the major tech companies, as Microsoft, Google, and Meta have released AI-powered software that focuses on productivity and creativity. While Apple's approach in iOS 18 also prioritizes the practical side of AI, the company has included some purely fun apps too—Image Playground being a prime example.
It exists as a standalone app, but you can also access it through Messages. To generate an image, you can either type a description of what you want to see, choose a photo of someone from your photo library, or pick from some preloaded concepts. You can also opt between three different styles including Illustration, Sketch, and Animation. The feature is not to be confused with Genmoji, which allows you to generate custom emoji directly from the keyboard using text prompts.
Since neither of these generative AI features are available in beta just yet (although a few other Apple Intelligence features are with the iOS 18.1 developer beta), the only examples we've seen of Image Playground’s and Gemoji’s output have been tightly controlled by Apple. Until the features are released, Federighi's adorable dog is the closest we'll get to seeing an example that exists beyond heavily produced and edited marketing materials. And I'd say it's a pretty good one, and certainly not as creepy as the examples we saw during the keynote at WWDC. Good job, Craig.
WIRED's Lily Hay Newman contributed reporting to this story.
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