Apple is finalizing a a profound overhaul of photo editing on your devicesFocusing on artificial intelligence, the company is preparing significant changes for the Photos app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The update will arrive with iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, and will represent one of the company's most ambitious steps in this area.
According to information reported by Bloomberg and other sources close to the development, the company is working on a new suite of tools under the Apple Intelligence umbrella This will allow users to automatically enlarge, enhance, and reframe images. With this, Apple aims to match—or at least approach—the established offerings of competitors like Google and Samsung in the field of generative AI editing.
A new block of smart editing tools
The Photos app will incorporate a specific section called "Apple Intelligence Tools"This is where the new advanced editing features will be grouped. This space will coexist with the current Adjustments, Filters, Crop, and Clean Up options, but will mark a clear leap in capabilities by relying more heavily on artificial intelligence models.
So far, Only Clean Up used AI to remove unwanted elements from a photograph, with varying results depending on the type of image. With the next generation of systems, Apple intends for artificial intelligence to move beyond being a one-off addition and become central to the editing experience.
The company is developing at least three main tools For Photos: Extend, Enhance, and Reframe. In some test environments, Clean Up is also mentioned as part of this block, although its operating logic is already familiar to platform users.
The move is part of Apple Intelligence's broader strategy, the set of AI functions integrated into the ecosystem which the brand is rolling out gradually. Photo editing would be one of the areas where this project will be most clearly reflected for the end user.
Extend: expand the scene beyond the original frame
One of the big news will be Extend, a feature designed to expand the edges of an image using generative AI models. Instead of cropping to fit the photo to another format, the system will be able to “invent” content consistent with the scene to fill the extra space.
In practice, this would allow, for example, Convert a vertical photo to horizontal format without losing important parts of the composition. The tool will generate new visual elements that respect the original lighting, style, and perspective, similar to what has already been seen in solutions like Photoshop's generative expansion or in some Android mobile features.
According to the leaks, the user will be able to manually specify which areas you want to extendThis will likely be done using on-screen gestures by dragging the edges of the frame. From there, the system will complete the rest in a matter of seconds, primarily working on the device itself.
This type of function can have a particular impact on social networks, where the need to adapt photos to different formats (vertical stories, square posts, panoramic views, etc.) is constant. For many users in Spain and Europe, this could represent a considerable time saving compared to third-party solutions.
Enhance: Automatic improvement with more advanced AI
The second key piece of the renovation will be Enhance, an evolution of automatic enhancement which Photos has been offering for years. Instead of applying generic adjustments, this new version will use more sophisticated AI models to more accurately analyze the content of each image.
The system will be able to Adjust brightness, exposure, color, contrast, sharpness, and other parameters In a more contextual way, adapting to the type of scene: portraits, landscapes, dimly lit interiors, or nighttime photographs, among others. The goal is to achieve more natural and less "artificial" results than those obtained with traditional algorithms.
Apple hopes that many users will be able to obtain results close to those of an expert manual adjustment With a single tap, reducing the learning curve and avoiding having to delve into advanced menus. This approach can be especially appealing to those who use the iPhone camera as their primary tool on a daily basis without wanting to complicate things too much.
By operating primarily locally, the company reinforces its classic message about privacy and processing on the deviceThis is an aspect that carries added weight in Europe due to the regulatory framework surrounding personal data and cloud services.
Reframe: to change the framing and perspective after taking the photo
The third important new development is Reframe, a function designed to reconfigure the composition of a photo even after it has been captured. It's not simply a matter of cropping or rotating, but of reinterpreting the scene with the help of artificial intelligence models.
Reframing will be especially relevant in the so-called Space photos, the three-dimensional format championed by Apple Following the launch of Vision Pro, the system, with its depth information, will be able to play with different planes and angles to reposition elements within the image.
In practice, this would allow, for example, to highlight a specific person within a groupThis allows you to slightly change the viewpoint or smooth out distortions without having to retake the shot. The idea is to offer more compositional flexibility afterward, which can be useful for both advanced users and those who simply want to "fix" a photo that didn't turn out perfectly.
These kinds of capabilities, if they end up working reliably, will strengthen Apple's position in an area where Google and some Android manufacturers already offer very powerful solutionsespecially in their high-end ranges.
Clean Up and the current state of AI editing at Apple
Along with the new features, it will still be present Clean Up, the tool designed to remove objects or people unwanted filters in an image. Although it's already part of Photos, reports suggest that Apple may continue to adjust its algorithms to improve the quality of the results.
So far, some users have pointed out that Clean Up may leave behind artifacts or unrealistic areas by removing elements, especially in complex backgrounds or scenes with a lot of detail. These criticisms partly explain the company's caution in deploying more aggressive features based on generative AI.
Currently, the Photos app offers four main groups of tools: Adjustments, Filters, Crop and Clean UpWith the addition of Extend, Enhance, and Reframe, the leap from the current generation will be remarkable, bringing the app integrated into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS closer to what many European users already find in third-party applications.
The move aligns with Apple's desire to to keep users within their own ecosystemreducing reliance on external apps for common editing tasks and offering a more consistent experience across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
On-device processing, privacy, and performance
One of the most discussed points regarding these new developments is that, according to leaks, The processing of the new functions will be done mostly on the device itself.This means that the editing will be done in a matter of seconds without needing to upload the photos to external servers.
This approach reinforces Apple's narrative about data protection and local information controlThis message tends to resonate particularly well in Europe, where the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other regulations place privacy at the heart of the technological debate.
However, this approach also requires a high level of optimization and performance To ensure a smooth process, especially on devices with older hardware, Apple has been working on chips with specific AI capabilities for some time, so these features will also help to justify that investment.
In addition to editing tools, the company plans improve the overall performance of your operating systemsreducing errors and refining the experience after significant visual changes introduced in previous years. The balance between innovation and stability will be key to the widespread adoption of these features.
Challenges in AI quality and potential feature delays
Despite the progress in development, the sources consulted indicate that Apple still faces quality problems in some of the new tools. Specifically, Extend and Reframe are causing the most headaches during internal testing.
The engineers reportedly detected inconsistent results, errors in details, or implausible added elements when expanding or reframing images, something that can be especially problematic in scenes with people or complex backgrounds.
The situation is reminiscent of what happened with the new AI-based version of Siriwhose launch was reportedly postponed because the company felt it hadn't yet reached the expected level of quality. Apple typically prioritizes reliability over speed of deployment, even if it means arriving later than the competition.
For this reason, it cannot be ruled out that Some of the internally announced functions may be delayed or even be left out of the initial presentation if the company believes it is not ready for a large-scale public launch.
Direct competition with Google, Samsung and the Android ecosystem
The push for AI-powered photo editing comes in a context of very intense competition in the mobile sectorGoogle has long excelled in this field with its Pixel phones, where tools like Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur, and generative image expansion have set the standard.
Samsung has also made remarkable progress with AI-powered editing features on your GalaxyRelying on both its own software and collaborations with Google and other players in the Android ecosystem, this competitive front has left Apple in a more conservative position by comparison.
Apple's new Intelligence suite applied to Photos seeks precisely to to narrow the gap with these proposals and offer a solid alternative within the iOS and macOS ecosystem. The goal is not only to satisfy those already on the platform, but also to strengthen its appeal to future iPhone and Mac buyers in Europe.
Although the company generally avoids bombastic language, the rollout of these features fits with a Apple's clearer repositioning in the field of generative AI, where until now it was perceived as slower than rivals such as Google, Microsoft or OpenAI.
Planned schedule: WWDC and fall launch
The official presentation of these new features is scheduled for the next edition of WWDCApple's annual developer conference, to be held on June 8, is expected to feature key aspects of iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, including new photo editing tools.
If the usual schedule is repeated, the first developer betas They will be released on the same day as the keynote, allowing developers and advanced users to begin testing the features in controlled environments. Public betas for a wider audience will follow later.
La final version of the operating systems It is expected to launch in September, coinciding with the arrival of the new generation of iPhones on the market. In Europe and Spain, distribution is usually simultaneous, so users could access these features on the same dates as in other territories.
In a year marked by the rise of generative AI and increasing pressure from rivals, Apple's bet to completely revamp photo editing Within its platform, it aims to demonstrate that the company continues to consider mobile photography as one of its strategic pillars, combining hardware and software to maintain the appeal of its ecosystem.