iPhone's AI-powered Photo Object Eraser Added in iOS 18.1 Beta
Apple started rolling out the latest beta of iOS 18.1 to developers yesterday, which is now in its third installment. iOS 18.1 Beta 3 continues to bring new Apple Intelligence features that were first added in the first release. The most notable addition to this update is the AI-powered Clean Up feature or the equivalent of Magic Eraser in Google Photos.
Apple's Clean Up was previewed at WWDC 2024 and it was also discovered via codes in early iO8 versions before its announcement. The new AI feature will also arrive on the iPad and Mac/MacBook via the betas of iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1, respectively.
How Apple's Clean Up AI tool works: Erase, Heal, and Pixelate
As the name implies, Clean Up lets you remove unwanted elements from photos that range from people to objects, similar to the popular Magic Eraser feature in Google Photos. More than just erasing elements, Clean Up also has retouch, heal, and pixelation modes.
Retouch works best to enhance faces like removing blemishes or correcting a specific area. You'll just need to zoom in and highlight a face. Likewise, it can also expel obtrusive shadows and reflections by circling them in a photo.
On the other hand, you can scribble on a person's face to censor or pixelate it. This is great if you want to conceal a face in a photo, keeping it private without actually removing or editing the entire person out.
More importantly, Apple will also label the EXIF data of photos edited by Clean Up, so that one can tell whether they are manipulated or otherwise. Of course, users should manually check the EXIF data to do this.
Clean Up is powered by the NPU or neural processing unit in the chipset of an iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It is part of the Apple Intelligence suite, meaning its availability could be extremely limited to iPhone models with supporting hardware. However, there's a chance it could be tacked on to older iPhones since it is not as resource-intensive compared to other AI features.
If you want a similar tool, Google's Magic Eraser is offered to users of Google Photos with Google One subscriptions.
Are you excited to test Apple Intelligence once it arrives on your iPhone? Let us know in the comments.
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