Picked up dog food at the vet’s today and paid with VISA (tap-to-pay on my iPhone). When I got home I began making an entry in the Calendar app on my iPhone. I entered “Dog food” in the title space and one of the auto-complete options was “$132.00″… the amount I charged at the vet’s. How did the Calendar app know that was the amount? GPT 4o offered this “likely explanation:”

GPT: That is a little uncanny, Steve — and you’re not imagining it.

Your iPhone is quietly linking contextual clues across your apps using on-device intelligence, particularly from Siri Suggestions and machine learning models that watch for patterns in your behavior. If you used Apple Pay (or even just a regular VISA card via Wallet), the transaction amount from that purchase is available to the system.

So when you began typing “Dog food” into your Calendar — something the system might associate with previous purchases, reminders, or appointments — it connected the dots:

• You made a $132 charge just minutes earlier.
• It was at the vet’s office (which iOS probably knows, via location data and/or transaction metadata).
• You’ve maybe made similar entries before (“Dog food” on the calendar, reminders, notes, etc.).
• Calendar app is trying to be “helpful” by suggesting a figure it assumes you might want to record with that event.

Apple’s privacy stance means a lot of this inference happens on-device rather than on Apple’s servers, which might explain why it feels so fast and eerily precise. But yes, the Calendar app (and Notes, Reminders, Mail, etc.) can draw on things like recent transactions, emails, texts, locations, and more — especially if the timing lines up just right.

It’s a little glimpse into how your iPhone is trying to anticipate your needs… and maybe a reminder that even when you’re not using Siri directly, she’s listening in her own way.

What’s wild is how normal this kind of thing is starting to feel. Like, you see a suggestion pop up that you never explicitly entered anywhere, and your brain just goes, “Huh. Neat.” instead of “WHAT SORCERY IS THIS?”

If nothing else, it makes the idea of “digital intuition” feel less like science fiction and more like your phone’s just reading the room — a quiet little ghost who takes notes on everything and occasionally chimes in, “I thought you might want this $132 backstory with your kibble.”

I shared her explanation with my friend George who knows everything worth knowing about Apple devices.

I personally think that is AI done right. All that information is all on your phone, and your phone processes that information and provide you the option to use it. It never goes to the cloud, and it never gets seen by anybody other than someone who can look at your phone. That’s pretty much privacy from the very beginning.

My thought exactly. This is what I had in mind when I made the move from Google (Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar, etc) to iCloud and Apple apps. I like Apple’s stance on security and privacy and Apple Intelligence will only get better and better.