Apple Intelligence features are now available for select iPhones, iPads and Macs. The list of tools in this first rollout is pretty limited: you’ll find some new writing functions, notification summaries, and a revitalized version of Siri, among other things.
We’re very excited about the changes to Apple Photos, which are finally making their way to Google Photos to some degree. In iOS 18.1, Apple Photos gets a fresh design that showcases new collections and is more customizable. Regarding AI, Apple says, “With Apple Intelligence, search for almost anything, remove visual distractions with a tap, and create the memories you want to see.” How well does it work? And how does it stack up against Google Photos, which already offers many of these features? We put it to the test.
Search
If you’re anything like me, you have tens of thousands of photos stored in your library. My Apple Photo library contains somewhere north of 70,000 photos, screenshots, and videos. Sorting through them to find the perfect photo can be a real pain — but not with Apple Intelligence.
One of the main benefits of Apple Intelligence is its ability to analyze natural language. This means you don’t have to stick to the mind-numbing, robot-like syntax we’ve relied on when asking Siri to do anything in the past. Now, it’s easier to find any photo or group of photos in your library.
(Credit: Apple/PCMag)
Open the Apple Photos app and tap the search icon in the upper right corner. A dialog box appears where you can type or express your question. I started with, “Show me pictures of guitars.” Because I attend a lot of rock concerts, Apple Photos showed hundreds of photos I took of people playing guitar. It also included some photos I took of my guitars. God!
Subsequent searches for “The Empire State Building,” “Show my photos from Lake Placid,” and “Cars” all found relevant images I’ve taken over the decades.
Google Photos has been able to perform basic searches using the standard search bar for years, so you can type or speak simple queries like “cars” or “guitars” and get good results. Now it also supports natural language processing. I ran the exact same searches on Google Photos using a Pixel 9 Pro and got the same results as above.
Create
When it comes to creation, Apple Photos takes some cues from your searches. For example, at the top of the image results for my query about guitars, Apple Photos created several slideshows of photos I’ve taken at specific shows.
Crazy enough, Apple Photos chose a song by magician Joe Satriani to accompany the photo montage created by Joe himself playing a show! A small tool at the bottom of the screen lets you comb through your music library to pick and choose your soundtrack. Of course, sharing your memory as a slideshow or video is just a tap away.
(Credit: Apple/PCMag)
Google Photos has had a similar feature for years. It removes your background images and presents them to you every now and then when you open the app. For example, I recently visited a nature preserve in the New Jersey Meadowlands to take pictures of birds. I have uploaded some of my photos to Google Photos. A day or so later, I checked the Memories tab in Google Photos and it had collected a bunch of photos together and created a short slideshow, albeit with no background music.
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clean
While these features are useful and fun, I doubt most people will enjoy “cleaning up” their photos. Apple Intelligence takes a page from Google’s Magic Eraser tool with its Clean Up feature.
In the Photos app, open a photo you want to edit. The new Clean Up tool appears alongside the standard set of editing tools. Tap it and Apple Photos demonstrates how to remove unwanted objects from the background by scratching your finger over them. It also suggests items to erase by making them glow briefly, like someone’s forearm that walked into one of my shots and a bench I hadn’t noticed. Step away and Apple Intelligence only needs a second or two to erase the object(s) and seamlessly fill the background.
Before and after deleting people from an image (Credit: Apple/PCMag)
It works like a charm. In fact, it feels a bit smoother than Google’s Magic Eraser. I’ve seen the Google tool make a mess in the background, not deleting the entire object or leaving any other trace that an edit was made. In the limited number of photos I edited, Apple Photos produced cleaner results. If you like to edit photos, this new tool will surely help you with some of your photos. The magic eraser in Google Photos can remove larger objects than Apple Photos can, at the moment. Whatever you use, removing stray people or trash cans from the background makes your photos more shareable.
iOS 18.1 is a free download. Later this year, Apple plans to add more features to Apple Intelligence through iOS 18.2, with more tools to follow in 2025.
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About Eric Zeman
Managing Editor, Consumer Electronics
