Apple is about to make major generative AI news; Here’s how I’ve used AI so far

In a few hours, we’ll find out what Apple has in store for its infused version of its iPhone software. Over the next year, we expect AI to bring iOS a better quality of life. Any indication in the near future that AI will advance to the point where iOS 19 and iOS 20 will be affected by AI just like iOS 18. We will see.

In the meantime, I want to set a marker for how generative AI works for me ahead of Apple’s expected contribution.

ChatGPT and Claude

85% of my AI usage consists of ChatGPT on Mac. First as a pinned icon in Safari, then as a premium Mac app.

ChatGPT is the first app I put between Finder and Safari. I think it’s because of how it changed the way I think about the internet, especially Google Search.

Another 10% of usage occurs in ChatGPT for iPhone, specifically ChatGPT Voice in silent mode. Anthropic’s Claude, another great AI powered language model, owns the other 5%.

I keep Perplexity installed on my iPhone, but with premium ChatGPT I’m not sure I need it. I know Google’s AI, but not its current name.

I subscribe to X Premium (to avoid rate restrictions on the Mac app), but I haven’t spent time on Grok. Perhaps Grok gives X a reason to revive the Mac app.

Anyway, back to AI.

Mathematics

A large language model dealing with complex text prediction alone should not be good at mathematics. I’m not either. But ChatGPT is able to recognize when a spoken response is not enough. Using natural language input, ChatGPT detects when analysis is required.

Here is a real world example. My best friend won a Cybertruck for free. He wanted to sell me a Tesla Model 3. I proposed a 36-month payment agreement between us, and he agreed. Simple enough.

However, he still has 19 months of car loan payments left. Plus we wanted to include insurance coverage, registration, extended warranty and a little APR.

Explaining it to ChatGPT in these terms has given us a dynamic payment plan that meets all of these needs while still working. I’m sure my friend could have crunched the numbers, but I appreciated being able to present the terms myself.

I’ve also used ChatGPT to set realistic financial goals, create budgets, and educate myself more about financial literacy. I appreciate the conversational nature without burdening the other.

writing

Many think of writing an essay for you when ChatGPT and writing are discussed. But I’m not inviting AI to replace me. Instead, I focused on using generative AI to sharpen my skills.

I enjoy writing as a form of communication and storytelling, and I appreciate that I will never ask ChatGPT to write a first draft for me.

Instead, I offer ChatGPT to be my second look at what I write. I use the Mac app Rocket Typist to extend the text shortcut; edit to this:

Any spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors? If so, concisely list in bullets, please:

Then I paste a sentence, paragraph or full text of my writing. I’ve been writing for 9to5Mac for 11 years and counting. Still, it’s a little frustrating to be forced to publish it knowing that readers all over the world will consume it.

ChatGPT helps reduce this anxiety, making publishing more enjoyable. If I were specifically into copy editing, I would also use generative AI to sharpen my skills.

I also use ChatGPT to quickly respond to queries that arise while I’m writing a story. The trick for me is to treat the results like Wikipedia. Never trust the text it returns. Instead, use it as a signal for where to focus your own research. This narrowing feature certainly keeps me on my train of thought more than anything else.

Health

Finally, and perhaps most personally profound, is how I use ChatGPT for health. Specifically my mental health.

I spend an hour with my therapist every Monday morning. It helps a lot to manage life as a single father of two children under 12 years old. My goals are always simple: process experiences, evaluate my perspective, and celebrate each milestone.

With permission, I record each session with Voice Memos on my iPhone. I then transcribe the audio file and the text on my MacBook Air using MacWhisper. Then I use a series of prompts to continue my therapy session.

• Can I show you the transcript of my latest therapy session? I'd like to take more from the session.
• What are some things I should focus on before my next session in two weeks?
• Any feedback about the kind of person I am?
• What are some actionable items for this week?
• Any constructive criticism to provide based on the transcript?
• What about blind spots to consider? Should I be thinking about something that I didn't bring up? Something that isn't top of mind but that healthy, functioning adults think about?

I believe that these pointers help to think, provoke new areas of thought and provide closure to a certain period. I appreciate having a definite end point and not losing the depths in introspection.

Overall, ChatGPT has also been useful for prioritizing tasks and making decisions.

Analysis paralysis is real. ChatGPT helps. The trick for me? ChatGPT shows its work. As with math instructions in natural language, ChatGPT provides a basis for how to sort tasks and suggest decisions.

These use cases and more have increased the usefulness of my iPhone and Mac. I’m eager to see what system-level integration of generative AI does for Apple.