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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Apple’s Add to Calendar lets you create events with one tap from screenshots.
- It doesn’t hallucinate and is more accurate than similar Android features.
- You can use the feature on every iPhone compatible with iOS 26.
I struggle to find genuinely helpful artificial intelligence features in daily life. Sure, removing unwanted objects from my photos is nice to have, but most other AI capabilities on recent phones have been one-time party tricks at best.
Unlike one of those features, I found a handy use case with Galaxy AI on the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra last year. A similar capability is now making its way to your iPhone with iOS 26. The feature I’m talking about is the one-tap Add to Calendar feature.
Also: I’ve tested every iPhone 17 model, and I’m recommending something different this time
In my 24 hours with the iPhone 17 Pro Max, I’ve found the feature to be more useful and polished than expected. I’d been testing this feature on my iPhone 15 Pro in the developer beta, and it has gotten more intuitive in the stable iOS 26 build.
As a freelancer who needs to coordinate with multiple people across apps and time zones for deadlines and meetings, adding things to my calendar helps me block my time and be more organized. You usually need to add things manually to your Calendar app, which can be time-consuming. After all, it adds up if you’re doing this task multiple times per day. I struggle with this manual approach, and that is why it feels refreshing to have this ability just a tap away.
Prakhar Khanna/ZDNET
Apple’s Add to Calendar feature is part of Visual Intelligence. All you need to do is take a screenshot of an event invite, and AI will suggest the “Add to Calendar” prompt. Tap on it, and it creates an event, which you can edit or add to your Calendar. For instance, I received a Diwali party invite with date, time, and place details. I took a screenshot, tapped the Add to Calendar option, and the feature added the exact details of the event to my Calendar app. No edits needed.
While it blocked an hour of my time when the invite stated “7 pm onwards,” I don’t mind this minor error for casual outings like this. I couldn’t include screenshots in this article of more sensitive material, such as embargo and meeting details, but the feature also gets those time slots correct. Again, with no edits needed.
Also: This handy Apple Intelligence feature saves me over $200 a year
The feature is more impressive than expected, as similar capabilities on the best Android phones tend to get a few details wrong.
How to use the Add to Calendar feature in Visual Intelligence on your iPhone
Prakhar Khanna/ZDNET
To add an event using Visual Intelligence on your Apple device, you need to have an iPhone that runs iOS 26. Once your device is updated, here’s how you can use the feature:
- Open the invite or event you need to add to your Calendar app.
- Take a screenshot of your screen, with all details, such as time, date, and place, visible.
- Apple Intelligence will now suggest an Add to Calendar option. Tap on it.
- You should get a pop-up with event details in the Calendar with two options: Edit or Create Event.
- Tap on Create Event, and it will be added to your Calendar app.
The best part of the feature is that these screenshots don’t clutter your Photos as your iPhone won’t save them if you tap on the close (x button) in the top-left corner. In case you want to save the screenshot, you can tap on the tick (top-right corner) and find it later in your Photos app.
Also: The surprising ways AI helps strong dev teams and hurts weak ones, according to Google
I find Galaxy AI’s sidebar implementation for AI Select more intuitive because I don’t have to press the phone’s buttons. However, unlike its competitors, Apple’s Add to Calendar feature doesn’t hallucinate and consistently gets the day, time, and place correct. This reliability is what makes the iPhone feature stand out from its rivals and makes me use it frequently.
The Cupertino company’s take on Add to Calendar is the first AI productivity feature on any phone that I can trust in terms of reliability. It’s one that I don’t need to double-check. I still do, of course, because the feature uses AI (and I’ve missed two meetings in the past while testing similar tools), but I hope this success makes me trust AI more over time.
