In summary:
- Macworld reports that Apple is developing three new AI-powered photo editing features for iOS 27: Extend, Enhance, and Reframe.
- These tools will join the existing Clean Up feature in a new “Apple Intelligence Tools” section within the Photos app.
- Internal testing reveals inconsistent results for Extend and Reframe features, which may potentially delay their official release to users.
A new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman gives us an idea of what to expect from iOS 27’s photo-editing features. Apple is said to be planning a major overhaul of the photo-editing experience, leaning heavily on AI for three big new features: Extend, Enhance, and Reframe. These three tools will be collected together with the existing Clean Up tool in a new “Apple Intelligence Tools” section of the Photos app.
According to the report, here’s what to expect from the new features:
Extend: Users will be able to “zoom out” on an existing photo, adding in details beyond the original frame. This sort of generative fill/expand feature is fairly commonplace.
Enhance: You’ll be able to improve color, lighting, and overall image quality using AI.
Reframe: When taking spatial photos, this new feature will allow you to shift perspective to produce a still image from a different angle.
Gurman notes that internal testing of the features hasn’t gone smoothly. In particular, the Extend and Reframe tools produce inconsistent results, so they could be delayed. Getting reliably good results is already the biggest problem with Apple’s only current AI-powered tool, Clean Up, so introducing more AI tools that don’t work well much of the time is not going to improve Apple’s reputation.
In his report, Gurman reminds us that the OS 27 updates are focused on two main areas: Apple Intelligence features, including the long-overdue new Siri, and a concerted effort to clean up the codebase to improve performance and battery life while reducing bugs. Apple is expected to preview the new OS at the WWDC keynote on June 8.
Author: Jason Cross, Senior Editor, Macworld
Jason has written about technology for more than 25 years - first in the gaming press, then focusing on enthusiast PCs and general technology. He enjoys learning how complicated technology works and explaining it in a way anyone can understand.