The Image Playgrounds app on iPadOS is Apple’s way of using its own Apple Intelligence to create images for you on-device. And whilst the results are pretty good, they’re very clearly AI-generated — they’re not useful for many things in my experience.

But actually, in iPadOS 26, we’ve now got the ability to use ChatGPT to generate images in that same app. So, the data will go off-device this time, but the results are far superior. Here’s how it works.

I’m going to create an image just like before, but this time at the top — where you can choose if you want a watercolour or oil pastel style — there’s a new option for ChatGPT. When you tap on here, you’re going to get even more options: posters, vectors, and all sorts of different things. You can also type exactly what you want in the bar at the bottom as well.

I’m going to go for Print for now, and I’m going to use my person — my picture at the bottom — to send that image of myself into ChatGPT to base the result on. And just like how Image Playgrounds normally works, we can add other things into our prompt. We don’t have to type a whole paragraph about what we want — we can simply add a few keywords, even some images and symbols.

I’m going to go on stage here, and I’m going to type in a couple of extra things. Let’s go for lasers, and we’ll go for dancing and see what happens. Then, when I stop adding more things, all of that’s going to go to ChatGPT, and it’s going to start working on an image for me.

Now, a word of warning here — it takes far longer than doing it on-device. In fact, I’ve found sometimes it can take a minute or a minute and a half to make an image. So, through the magic of editing, you’re not going to have to wait that long. In fact, there you go — magical! It’s there.

Erm… but that’s not just me dancing. I’m not sure where that’s come from — there’s a second person in the picture! That’s okay though, because we can change our prompt. We’re not always sure what we’re going to get with AI, and of course, if we don’t get what we want, we can simply change it.

So actually, what I’m going to do is change the style. I’ll go from Print to Vector, but I’ll leave the rest of the prompts the same. And again, through the magic of editing — there you go. That’s perfect! That’s much more what I had in mind. A little bit more cartoony and fun. I’m not sure where the drum came from, but I like them — adds to the party vibe, I suppose!

I can, of course, save this image to my library, share it if I need to, and I’ve got that image to use on my device. It’s much better quality, and you get far more interesting results using ChatGPT than the on-device processing — but like I said, it does take that little bit longer.

If you want to see what else is new in iPadOS 26 this year — and spoiler alert, there’s loads of new stuff — check out my YouTube channel down below. There are loads more QuickTips for you there, so make sure you subscribe and I’ll see you next time.