Update: Apple's revamped Siri + Camera App
Many of you will need a new phone to use the features
Apple this week, as usual, made a slew of announcements about new things coming to iPhones in the fall with the operating system upgrade to iOS27.
Here’s a short version: a new Siri AI app will be introduced that promises to turn the digital assistant into a chattier, more responsive AI tool that knows more about you, based on information in your e-mail, text messages and search histories. This in turn will make Siri more useful, per Apple. It will also work across the entire Mac platform, from iPhones to iPads and Mac computers.
Fine print: the Siri AI app will only work on the iPhone 17 Pro (not the base model!) and iPhone Air, and new phones coming in the fall. If you have an iPhone 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, etc., you’re out of luck, although the revamped Siri itself will work outside of the app on the 16 and 17 models.
There will be a daily usage limit to using the Siri AI app, and if you want more, you’ll need a subscription to Apple’s iCloud +, but Apple hasn’t said at what level. Monthly charges start at 99 cents, and go up to $9.99 monthly for two terabytes of storage.
The Siri AI app is based on Google Gemini, in an Apple wrapper.
Apple promises visual AI information. For instance, if you have a photo of Carnegie Hall on your screen, you could ask for directions there and the history of the facility.
Apple says we’ll see faster performance with iOS 27, apps opening quicker, AirDrop transfers moving speedier (when they work) and the like.
Lance Ulanoff at Tech Radar has a good overview, as does David Pogue here on Substack.
For readers of this newsletter, the updates to the Camera App will probably be of most interest.
Using AI edit tools, you can take a photo of your kids standing on the left side of the image, and move them with one click to the right or middle. Apple calls this Spatial Reframing.
You can extend a vertical photo by dragging into a horizontal.
The “clean up” tool that lets you erase unwanted objects from the photo has been upgraded, Apple says, to now let you erase larger objects.
I’m a little queasy about these features going mainstream, as they’re really not photography, which is our vision of what we see in the world.
On the one hand, yes, with Photoshop, we could do all these things already, but it would take hours, and a monthly charge of around $20 to pull off.
On the reframing, how do we learn how to be better photographers by just fixing everything in post?
I’m less queasy about the Extend tool. I’ve taken too many vertical photos which would have looked better as horizontal, and frankly, I’ve been cropping many a horizontal photo to vertical for years.
On the improved Clean Up tool, it’s like using any tool we’ve been reaching for in Photoshop for years, just made easier and quicker.
Readers, how do you feel about these new tools?
Apple says the Siri AI app will let you use your voice to take a Selfie, add a photo to an album and rotate a photo that is off-kilter.
Apple has been promising this feature for years—to have Siri pull YOUR vacation photos in a voice search. My experience has been than when I ask for MY photos of say, Barcelona, I get someone else’s! I sure hope this new feature really works, finally.
Apple also says these new features will be available in iOS27.
Search will return “more pleasing” photos of people and pets in Photos. (Can’t wait to see that work.)
Save a video frame as a photo
More accurate photo orientation
Smoother camera switching when zooming in video
I hope everything announced works as advertised, but it doesn’t usually. Meanwhile, iOS27 is expected to be released to the general public in mid-September, with a beta available next month to consumers. (If you want to download it, it’s best to try on an older phone, if possible, since there’s no going back.) Even though Siri AI will only be available on the 17 Pro and Air, the iOS upgrade goes back to the iPhone 11 and up.
YouTuber Tyler Stalman has an excellent interview with Apple Camera execs, who walk through the new features.
PSA: Scottish Photographer loses Gear in Key Clone Theft
Here’s another awful story about a photographer losing his gear, this time in Glasgow.
As the Glasgow Times put it: “Cunning thieves suspected of cloning a car key have left a Glasgow photographer devastated after stealing thousands of pounds’ worth of equipment from his locked car.”
The man lost a whole bunch of gear while he was sleeping, and I feel bad for him, but ahem, folks—don’t leave your stuff in a locked car! Anyone can easily get into a car, by smashing and grabbing, or, as you can read about here, by cloning a car key.
What’s the Best Photo You Ever Took?
I was asked this question on a podcast this week and got stumped. I’ve taken so many. Ugh. I’m going through the library now—will let you know what I come up with. What’s yours?
This weekend on Photowalks: Manhattan Beach
We visit my favorite SoCal beach town this weekend on Photowalks, the town I live in, Manhattan Beach. It gets smaller crowds than Santa Monica or some of the Orange County beach cities, you can walk everywhere and we’ve got the most photogenic pier in California. That’s not opinion, it’s just fact.
The show debuts on Scripps News Sunday at 10 a.m. ET, and will replay on YouTube as well. Check out the preview below.
Next Stop: Alaska!
We’re headed off to the next great Photowalks trip this weekend, to the Last Frontier and 49th state, starting in Juneau, then to Fairbanks and Denali National Park.
We’ve got ice fields visits, helicopter glacier tours, whale watching, totem pole viewing, gold panning and more on the itinerary. Can’t wait! Thank you Kristi and Jerry!
Summer Solstice is Friday, where the darkest hours will be few. Sunset tonight is scheduled for 12:38 a.m. with sunrise just a few hours later at 3:03. By Friday, will the sun set at all?
We can always sleep when we get home.
Alaska will be the 34th state we’ve filmed Photowalks episodes in, so only 16 more to go to complete the list. Looking at you North Dakota (I’ll be there in August) Nebraska, Minnesota (August!) Iowa, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Wisconsin (October) West Virginia, North Carolina, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Kansas.
Thank you everyone for the kind birthday wishes, which I extended from last week in Evansville, Indiana to this week. No birthday is complete without an ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery, a tradition that goes back at least 15 years and being with great friends and family.
Thanks as always for viewing, reading and listening!
Jeff