The most underrated new iPhone 16 AI feature will save you hours from reading long articles – but Samsung does it better.
As someone who’s running the latest iOS 18 beta on my iPhone 15 Pro Max I have access to some “Apple Intelligence” features most iPhone 15 Pro users probably haven’t tried yet (and they absolutely shouldn’t – the beta is full of bugs).
And while the new Siri, text rewriting tools, and Apple’s take on the Magic Eraser called “Clean up” are fun to play around, I believe one of the most useful new iPhone 16 and iPhone 15 Pro features will be the ability to summarize lengthy web pages – kinda like this one (only 1,500 words – no big deal).
And while Samsung and Google’s flagship phones have had a similar feature for some time now, you can bet Apple has gone for a slightly different approach – as always. So, let’s take a closer look…
New iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 AI summarization feature can save hours from reading long articles, but Apple could’ve done a better job
For those of you who aren’t running the iOS 18 beta on their iPhone 15 Pro and haven’t already summarized this article, I should probably start by saying that Apple’s implementation of the web page summarization feature might be the cleanest of them all. At least visually.
You summon it by hitting a little contextual button on the left side of your Safari search bar. Unfortunately, it takes an extra step as you then need to hit the “Show Reader” button, which removes all distractions (including ads) and gives you a far cleaner look at whatever you’re reading – it’s like a high-end magazine.
The third step is to simply hit the “Summarize” button, which comes up on top, and voila – Apple Intelligence (literally) starts shining a purple light across the text and then comes up with a short summary of whatever you’re too busy/lazy to read.
Here are a few things to note about how the web page summarization feature performs on my iPhone 15 Pro (running the iOS 18 beta)
Surprise, surprise… Apple’s AI summarization feature seems to be exclusive to Safari – that is unless the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 (with access to ChatGPT) get the ability to perform a similar action with a voice command regardless of the browser (or app) you’re in – but that’s a pure speculation on my side
Unlike Samsung’s equivalent feature (more about that below), Apple’s AI summary is quite short, which sounds good but it means you’re likely to miss out on some important detail you might be interested in – so bear that in mind
As I’ve tested Apple’s AI summarization feature alongside Samsung and Google’s versions, I can say (when the summary isn’t too short), it actually gives you a very similar breakdown to that of Samsung’s – which is great news
I tested Apple’s AI summarization feature with my recent “Crappy iPhone 16 Pro color proves how unexciting the iPhone has become (or does it?)” story, and it managed to give me a satisfactory summary, including my personal feelings about the alleged “Desert Titanium” color coming to iPhone 16 Pro. The Galaxy S24 Ultra nailed it too, and the Pixel… not so much.
