Latest iPhone ad promotes new iOS 26 AI feature that is an old Pixel 6 AI feature
Apple's latest ad for the iPhone stars an emotionless cat.
In October 2021, Google unveiled the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. It was the start of Google's renewed focus on making the Pixel an iPhone challenger. The previous Pixel model, the Pixel 5, was a mid-ranger. The Pixel 6 introduced Google's first application processor (AP), the Tensor, although it was mostly based on an Exynos AP. Still, it allowed Google to make the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro the first smartphones with a native AI and machine learning feature that previously could only be found on a smartphone with an app installed.
Apple's Clean Up feature and an emotionless cat star in the latest iPhone ad
The feature, the Magic Eraser, allowed users to circle distractions in a photo and have them disappear. As Apple is wont to do, it copied the feature, gave it a new name, and is now promoting it as "Clean Up." We first told you about this feature in June 2024. Now, over a year later, Apple has the feature starring in its latest television commercial for the iPhone 16 series. The ad is titled "Clean Up Photos: Cat."
The ad shows a husband looking at his iPhone, sitting in a chair on the left side of the scene, while his wife is on the right side, sitting on a couch, reading a book. The couple's cat Garrett is on the couch near the wife. The husband takes his iPhone, snaps a picture of his wife and the cat. By using his finger to draw a circle around the cat, the feline disappears, turning a photo of the wife and the cat into a picture of just the wife, reading a book.
The husband shows the AI-edited photo to his wife, which shows that the cat is gone. Putting on a sad face the wife goes back to her book and says, practically under her breath, "I always knew you hated Garrett." The color drains from the husband's face, and he stares at the cat on the couch. After all, Garrett really didn't disappear in real life of course, only in the photo. The husband taps the screen on his iPhone, and the cat returns to the picture. That makes the wife smile, which makes the husband smile. Poor Garrett can only stare emotionless at the man who dared to remove him from a photograph.
Because the feature requires the use of Apple Intelligence, Apple's AI Initiative, it is available for the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, the iPhone 16 line, and the iPhone 16e.
To use "Clean Up," pick a photo from the iOS Photos app, tap the "Edit" icon at the bottom of the display, which looks like three slider controls. Make sure the AUTO feature is on (the icon, near the bottom of the screen, looks like a magic wand). The last icon on the right of the display says"Clean Up." Tap on it, use your fingernail to circle the item you want removed, and it is removed on your screen as AI magic creates the new background.
How Apple could add to the capabilities of the Clean Up feature
The ad is slightly over one minute in length and will probably be edited down to 30 seconds. You'll probably see it this weekend while watching televised sporting events such as Major League Baseball.
Google's Magic Eraser later led to the creation of the Magic Editor, which can add content to fill the gaps in the pictures on your compatible Pixel models. It can also remove distracting items from photographs, like the Magic Eraser, and move and resize items. The Magic Editor debuted with the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro and has since been made available to users of the Pixel 6 series and later. It will be interesting to see if Apple increases the capabilities of "Clean Up" just as Google did with the Magic Eraser.
This is how well Apple's iOS 26 AI feature "Clean Up" removes items from a photograph. | Image credit-PhoneArena
Apple recently took another AI feature that debuted on the Pixel 6 line, added it to certain iPhone models, and gave it a different name. Google's "Hold for me" uses AI to monitor a call when you've been put on hold. With this feature, instead of being forced to listen to horrible muzak or boring announcements, you can do what you want while on hold.
Once the other party returns to the call, you'll hear an audible tone to let you know that you are no longer on hold and that the call is resuming. Apple has the same feature inside the Phone app in iOS 26 OS called Hold Assist. Apple will probably make an ad about it once iOS 26 is released in September.
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