By D. Griffin Jones •
Apple’s Image Playground is a free app for iPhone and other Apple devices that lets you generate unlimited AI images for free. You can generate images based on your friends, from a text prompt or totally from scratch, in a wide variety of themes and styles.
It’s part of Apple Intelligence, the growing set of AI features that work on the latest iPhones, Macs and iPads. Here’s how to use Image Playground.
The ability to create imagery from simple text prompts rocketed products like Midjourney and OpenAI’s Dall-E to popularity, for better or worse. With the free Image Playground app, Apple wants to horn in on that action. And since the app runs on compatible iPhones, for free, it puts the power of AI art in the hands of millions of users who might not otherwise dabble in such endeavors.
As with all things Apple, Image Playground is easy to use and (mostly) sanitized. To help avoid deepfakes and misinformation, Apple limited the image tool to three cartoonish styles: Animation, Illustration and Sketch. The company also attempts to stop people from generating offensive or copyright-protected images.
Image Playground is part of the second round of Apple’s AI features, available in iOS 18.2. As with all Apple Intelligence features, you’ll need an iPhone, Mac or iPad with an M-series chip, an A17 Pro chip or greater to use the app.
If you don’t already have iOS 18.2, you can install it by going to Settings > General > Software Update. After you update, head to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri to enable Apple Intelligence.
After you update, you’ll see the Playground app on your iPhone’s Home Screen that will let you generate AI images from scratch. To get started, open the Playground app and tap the big + button at the bottom right of the screen. (Image Playground is also available inside Apple’s Messages app, from the app menu.)
There are four ways to create AI images in Image Playground:
Once you choose a starting prompt, Image Playground will generate four options at a time. You can swipe to see more variations.
If you’re not happy with the results, you can adjust the image further. Tap the square image preview to return and edit the prompts. You can add preset tags from Apple, such as themes, costumes, accessories, and places, or type in additional descriptions in the text box. To remove a prompt, simply tap on any of the floating bubbles.
When you’re satisfied, tap Done in the upper right to save your image. You can share it, delete it, or return to edit it anytime. Additionally, you can provide feedback by giving it a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, as this is a beta feature and may produce unexpected results.
Personally, I’m not impressed by this much-hyped Apple Intelligence feature. The images created by Image Playground are disappointing. When compared to advanced AI image generators like Midjourney, the results from Image Playground look outdated by at least two years.
It struggles with basic tasks like drawing straight lines, and many parts of the images tend to blend together. While it’s interesting that everything happens on-device with no limitations, the novelty doesn’t make up for the fact that it produces subpar results.
Despite Apple’s attempts to implement safeguards against harmful or explicit prompts, I find it concerning that you can generate images using anything from your photo library. In fact, I was easily able to download an image online and use it to create an image of Adolf Hitler standing on the White House lawn. If I were a malicious middle-schooler, I could easily create embarrassing or harmful images to bully or harass classmates.
In my opinion, Apple should reconsider releasing the Image Playground feature. It seems destined to become a constant battle to prevent misuse, offering little value in return. Even the best images it creates aren’t particularly impressive.
This article on Image Playground was originally published on November 21, 2024. We updated it with new information on December 11, 2024 and April 22, 2025.
D. Griffin Jones is a writer, podcaster and video producer for Cult of Mac. Griffin has been a passionate computer enthusiast since 2002, when he got his first PC — but since getting a Mac in 2008, he hasn’t turned back. His skills in graphic and web design, along with video and podcast editing, are self-taught over 20+ years. Griffin has a bachelor’s degree in computer science and has written several (unpublished) apps for Mac and iOS. His collection of old computers is made up of 40+ desktops, laptops, PDAs and devices, dating back to the early ’80s. He brings all of these creative and technical skills, along with a deep knowledge of Apple history, into his work for Cult of Mac.
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