Apple is undoubtedly behind in the AI race. “Apple Intelligence” has fewer features and less utility than similar products from competitors; The company does not have any chatbot of its own; And we’re still waiting for the AI-powered Siri upgrade that Apple first teased in 2024.
And yet, much of this may change with iOS 27. This update is shaping up to be a catch-up moment for Apple, as rumors suggest we’ll finally see an updated Siri, as well as Apple’s attempt at chatbots like ChatGPIT. And now it looks like there’s a good chance that the update will also include new photo editing features that could compete directly with others in the AI market.
As Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports (Via MacRumors), Apple is planning to add a new “Apple Intelligence Tools” section to the Photos app. This new option will have three AI-powered editing options: Expand, Enhance, or Reframe.
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Increase Works like other generator fill applications. The goal is to widen the crop of an image by adding AI-generated imagery. For example, if you want to enlarge the frame of a photo of a park bench, Extend can use AI to add additional grass, sky, and trees to make the image larger. The feature will reportedly work with zoom gestures, which could make it a more intuitive experience.
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Increase It seems to be a repeat of existing photo enhancement features. The option will adjust various elements of your photo according to AI. This includes things like color and lighting – elements you can already automatically adjust using the photo’s “Auto Enhance” option. Perhaps Apple has improved the AI model to make it work better, or maybe it’s the same feature, packaged under the new Apple Intelligence menu.
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reframe Designed for spatial photos. When selecting this option, you will be able to adjust the perspective of the spatial photo by tapping on the 3D image data to make changes to the framing. This seems like a promising feature if Apple can implement it: the ability to re-frame a photo after taking it would provide major editing features in the case the original image wasn’t what you wanted.
These features may change or be removed
Although Gurman is confident that these AI features exist, they do not warrant guaranteed inclusion for the launch of iOS 27. Apple’s AI development as a whole has been spotty, and these image editing tools may be no exception — Gurman says Extend and Reframe in particular may be delayed to a future update, perhaps iOS 27.1 or iOS 27.2. This is not unusual for Apple. The company will often announce features at WWDC, only to delay them, and these features haven’t gotten that far yet. But it could be another sign that Apple’s AI department is still experiencing problems.
What do you think so far?
Apple’s only major AI image editing feature right now is Clean Up, and when it works, it often falls short compared to the competition. Writing for LifeHacker, David Nield found that the tool’s performance was on par with Google’s Magic Eraser, but that it could not compete with Samsung’s Object Eraser. Perhaps iOS 27 will introduce some improvements to Apple’s other AI efforts along with the clean up.
