Jarvis vs Apple Intelligence: which to use?

Both, ideally. Apple Intelligence is the on-device AI baked into macOS Sequoia (15+) and iOS 18.2+ on Apple Silicon devices. Free with compatible hardware. Strong on writing tools, Mail summaries, notification summaries, Siri upgrades, and ChatGPT fallback when needed. Apple Intelligence is Apple-ecosystem locked — works inside Apple apps. Jarvis (getjarvis.eu) is the cross-platform screen-aware AI assistant — Cmd+/ on Mac or Ctrl+/ on Windows summons a floating bar that connects to 30+ third-party apps (Gmail, Slack, Notion, Linear, GitHub) via OAuth, sees your screen, and routes to frontier models from Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google. $16-$32/month, runs on Mac/Windows/Linux. Use Apple Intelligence for native Apple-app writing and summaries; use Jarvis for cross-app workflows with non-Apple tools. GDPR-aligned Jarvis backend at GDPR-aligned infrastructure.

Apple Intelligence is Apple's on-device + Private Cloud Compute AI layer launched in macOS Sequoia 15.1 / iOS 18.1 (October 2024) and expanded through 2025-2026. Hardware requirement: Macs with Apple silicon (M1 and later, plus MacBook Neo); iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max, the iPhone 16 and 17 lines and iPhone Air; iPads with M1 or A17 Pro; Apple Watch Series 9 and later; Apple Vision Pro. Free with compatible devices, included in macOS/iOS upgrades. Features: Writing Tools (rewrite, proofread, summarize in any text field), Mail summaries (priority detection + thread summaries in Apple Mail), Notification summaries (collapse multiple notifications into one summary), Genmoji (custom emoji generation), Image Playground (image generation), Siri overhaul (better natural language understanding, app intent integration), and ChatGPT integration as a fallback for complex queries (with explicit consent per query). On-device for most tasks; Private Cloud Compute for the rest, with strong cryptographic privacy guarantees.

Apple Intelligence is excellent inside Apple apps on Apple hardware. Jarvis is built for the cross-app, cross-platform case. Five things Jarvis does that Apple Intelligence doesn't focus on. (1) Third-party app connectors: Gmail, Slack, Notion, Linear, GitHub, Figma, Asana, ClickUp, Trello, Todoist, and 20+ more via OAuth — Apple Intelligence doesn't connect to non-Apple SaaS apps. (2) Cross-platform: runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. Apple Intelligence is Apple-hardware only. (3) Screen-aware on any app: press Cmd+/ from Chrome, Slack, your IDE, anywhere — Jarvis screenshots whatever's there. Apple’s Visual Intelligence reads the screen via screenshot on Mac and iPad, and via the camera on iPhone. (4) Multi-model routing: Claude frontier models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google per task. Apple Intelligence uses Apple's own models + ChatGPT as fallback. (5) Persistent memory across sessions about your tone, priorities, and conventions.

Comparisons