Image Playground displays "unable to use that description" for every entry?

Try this maybe?

I originally enabled Apple Intelligence on iPhone 16 pro, downloaded the models, and played around a bit. All worked, but not impressed. I then turned it off in Settings (so it wasn’t constantly running in background). Came back a few days later, turned AI back on and tried Image Playground again and kept getting the “unable to use description” errors.

So I went back and looked in settings, and it showed it was still “downloading models…”. Didn’t realize they need to be downloaded each time you turn on. You’d think they’d keep those locally. So I waited a bit, restarted phone and Image Playground and it seems to be working again for me. (Still not overly impressed tho…)

It looks like the photo library is indeed the key. I have mine on an external drive because it was taking up a lot of space on the boot drive. It kind of came disconnected but when I reconnected the library and selected it as the system library, then rebooted, playgrounds was able to render something from the built in prompts. It's an interesting dependency.

Go into Apple Intelligence & Siri in settings. Check if you see ‘you’ll be notified when genmoji etc are available…’. If you see that stay on that screen for a minute. Needs to be installed

I had a a similar problem as described - MacBook M1 Max - 15.2. I was unable to select any photos and written descriptions would always bring up errors. I have managed to sort some of the issues whilst trying to sort an unrelated Apple Pay issue I had (basically turns out my profile had an issue, setting up a new one sorted it).

Previously I had played around with my photo libraries but quite what I did is lost to the mists of time. The creation of a new profile and new system photo library, sorted the Image Playground. So one thing to check is that the your photo library is registering as a system library as I don’t believe mine was - there is an apple article ‘Designate a System Photo Library in Photos which walks you through the steps. I re-assigned my system photo library and could then see my photos (if you press option and then open your photo app you can choose which photo library you want to open, it should say in brackets after the name that it is the system library)

May not be a solution for everyone however mostly worked for me. Some photos coming up with an error ‘The operation couldn’t be completed. (CoreTransferable.TransferableSupportError error 0.)’ not sure how to resolve this but it doesn’t appear to happen on all photos. 

Open Apple Photos, go to Photos->Settings

In the General tab, click 'Use as System Photo Library'

Now reboot, and try Image Playground again.

Go to settings. Turn off 'Apple intelligence and Siri'. Turn it back on again and it will (re) download Apple Intelligence. When the icons appear, try it again. If that fails, make a new Admin user account (or try the guest account) and log into that.

That is the only way it works on my iMac M1.

It doesn't work in my profile - BUT if I set up a new admin account then it works. Likely some bug in Settings/General/Login items/Extensions affecting it loading correctly~ I'm guessing we'll have to wait for a software update as the app can't be deleted and reinstalled. Any thoughts?

Works on my iPhone 15 pro but not Macbook Pro M3.

I had the same issue, I closed this app after a while opened it again. It worked. I guess it’s unstable, not user’s problem.

Once the models were downloaded… I had the same issue, but then I closed the app and reopened, and it worked fine.

If you go into settings and change your region to United States it will then work just fine.. even if your in the United States change it to something else say Pakistan for example then switch it back to United States and it should work just fine then .. also if your not in the United States I don’t think you need to keep it on United States if your not in that region , I think you just got to switch it over once but it would then work if you switch it back to the region your in .. if that makes sense 🙂

Making a new profile solved the problem. I still can't use it on my main account , I have to log out and then log into the new profile account.

Having the same issue in brand new M4 Mac Mini, "unable to use that description" message every single time. Added a new user as per your suggestion and it now works under that user. Hope a fix is coming soon. Thanks for providing a solution!

I had the same problem with the front facing camera pictures, but when I tried with rear facing camera, it seemed to work.

Image playground, genmoji and all the other Apple Intelligence features are working fine on my iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPad Pro M1 and MacBook Pro M1. Why they aren't on your device(s), we can't diagnose for you as this is a user to user only forum.

I'd recommend contacting Apple Support for direct assistance. If you're in the US, you can call Apple at: 800-MY-APPLE. You can visit an Apple Store. You can use the support button at the bottom of this page.

Without knowing more information, we can't possibly help you:

1. Where are you located in the world?
2. Have you actually downloaded Apple Intelligence to your iPhone
3. Are you updated to iOS 18.2
4. What is the exact model of your iPhone? Go to Settings > General > About > Model