From an sysadmin perspective, assuming Apple provides full MDM toggles you can typically toggle these off one way or another. (.plist / preference keys, etc).
With the most recent 'Apple Intelligence' function, it took a while for Apple to grant the ability to disable/enable each feature, then a bit of time for the respective MDM Software developers (Jamf, etc) to provide toggles.
Sounds good, where’s the “just kill this” toggle in my iPhone settings? I ain’t gonna bother with mdm etc etc I just need the damn thing to work and do what I need.
Oh I’m definitely not going to use it. But apple tends to try to put these things in your face and get you to use them (seen all those purple buttons in Pages lately?). A global “just don’t show me or try to get me to use this crap at all” switch would be very welcome. Bonus if it also frees up however many GB of space this garbage will take whether I use it or not.
I’m mad at Apple for dropping the ball with the sloppy mess that is iOS 26. I trust they’ll see the light and fix it. Miles of difference with Microsoft - I’d sooner renounce computers entirely and quit my job than be in a position where I have to use Microsoft stuff regularly.
I think it's important to note what they didn't talk about. They briefly scrolled a long list of performance improvements and mentioned a few. Personally, I am very hopeful that the fact that they only talked about these high level AI features means the other engineers got to spend time focusing on performance and quality.
Fixing the shit show that iOS 26 is and making it so my shiny new iPhone 17 doesn’t visibly struggle rendering simple ui elements should be considered table stakes for iOS 27, I wouldn’t expect them to mention that too much as it’s like the bare minimum we expect for the update.
With the most recent 'Apple Intelligence' function, it took a while for Apple to grant the ability to disable/enable each feature, then a bit of time for the respective MDM Software developers (Jamf, etc) to provide toggles.