Apple Now Has Its Own Magic Eraser for IPhone
When Apple announced Apple Intelligence , a set of generative artificial intelligence functions, one of the new options it highlighted was Cleaning. This new Photos feature allows you to identify unwanted objects and subjects in your images and use generative AI to remove them from your photo.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because Google did it first . The company’s Magic Eraser feature works almost identically and has evolved from a Pixel-exclusive feature to a Google Photos option on both Android and iPhone. But most iOS users don’t have Google Photos, so Clean Up will likely be the first AI-powered generative object removal tool iPhone owners try out for themselves.
While you can’t try out Clean Up and other Apple Intelligence features in the latest public version of iOS, the feature is available for those who don’t mind a little risk: Apple included it in the third developer beta of iOS 18.1 . a future software update that will introduce Apple Intelligence to compatible iPhones. (For now, that’s only the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.) If you enroll your compatible iPhone in the latest iOS 18.1 developer beta , you’ll be able to try it out.
Disclaimer: Running beta software on your device is risky as the software is still being tested. There may be bugs or other glitches that have not yet been discovered and resolved that could corrupt your device and its data. If you decide to install the iOS 18.1 beta, do so at your own risk.
How Apple Intelligence Cleanup works
If your iPhone is running the latest iOS 18.1 developer beta, select an image from the Photos section and tap Edit . You’ll see a new Clear button on the bottom toolbar. Tap it and iOS will tell you, “Tap, brush, or circle what you want to delete.” So, if you want to get rid of a photobombed seagull in a beach photo, circle it; if you want to remove a stranger from the background of a group photo, tap the person; If you want to remove clutter from the table in your image, run your brush over it.
While these gestures generally all work the same, they can obviously do different things in different situations. For example, you can add pixelation to people’s faces in your photos by circling them, as shown in this post on X.
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