Apple Explains How the Photos People Recognition Feature Has Improved in iOS 15

[MacRumors]

Apple's iOS 15 website lists "improved recognition for individuals" as one of the new Photos features, and in a machine learning blog post shared this week, Apple gave more information on what exactly that means.

Apple says that on-device machine learning improvements have led to significantly better person recognition. The iOS 15 Photos app is able to detect people in extreme poses, people wearing accessories, and people with occluded faces.

To do this, Apple uses a combination of face and upper body to match people whose faces are not visible. Apple's machine learning blog says that the new functionality improves the Photos experience by identifying people in situations where it was previously impossible.

Apple's blog post on recognizing people in photos through on-device machine learning goes into much greater detail on how Apple uses machine learning to identify people while still protecting user privacy, and it's well worth a read for those who are interested in the inner workings of ML features.

Article Link: Apple Explains How the Photos People Recognition Feature Has Improved in iOS 15

 

[Think|Different]

This feature has impressed me, time and time again! You just train it a bit by confirming a face or two and it does the rest. I've been shocked at how it has accurately matched my baby niece as she and her face has changed month to month, year after year, and now she's 3! The little movies with music iOS 15 makes are actually impressive, always dismissed those before.

 

[kaardowiq]

Does it affect the photos app (as standalone w/o iPhone) on Mac, too? Or only in combination that it gets synced?

 

[Cory S]

I have been looking for a multi platform self hosted photo library tool for years with good facial recognition. While Photos isn’t multi platform im really amazed at how good the object and face recognition is. It’s not at googles level but it’s a solid second best and it’s doing it on a cell phone.

 

[kaardowiq]

I have been looking for a multi platform self hosted photo library tool for years with good facial recognition. While Photos isn’t multi platform im really amazed at how good the object and face recognition is. It’s not at googles level but it’s a solid second best and it’s doing it on a cell phone.

Definitely, it is. Had 7TB pic/videos at Google and migrated to Apple this year (had to delete many 4K videos to fit the 2TB). But the people recognition is the best at Google. Example: we made some pics with our bike crew.
- First with helmets on
- Second without helmets
- third from back

it scanned the faces of the pic without helmets and was able to link the other ones (with helmets on and back view) to the correct persons (probably by the outfit, colors etc). This was pretty impressive, like keep tracking my child from birth till her 12th birthday. Glad to here that at least the last one seems to get better with iOS 15

 

[jmh600cbr]

can confirm, it works insanely well compared to prior versions. even knows what i looked like as a baby.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

That is a great feature. Machine learning!
Very intelligent and smart.

 

[Agit21]

I use google photos. So ty Apple but I'll pass.

 

[midkay]

Super cool, this was already decent but the new ability to even identify people looking away from the camera based on their clothing/appearance should go a long way to filling those gaps where it failed before.

 

[MaxLt]

It does work really well. It seems to be close to Google's to the point I can't tell which one is better. If only Apple finally discovered the concept of family and provided a viable solution for storing photos from many users in the same collection.

 

[dba415]

Still farrrr behind Google

 

[Phil77354]

I have mixed feelings about this.

No doubt it is cool and useful for those who will take advantage of these capabilities in keeping track of their photo libraries, things like that.

At the same time the surveillance aspects of this technology are very worrying, thinking especially at how certain other countries seem to be using it (looking at you, China).

 

[Kkspire]

Y’all giving your photos to google. Good luck with that. iPhone is using incredible tech on device. Google is going to data centers for processing. No thanks.

 

[ghanwani]

I still don’t understand. Can they explain it again?

 

[Cesar Battistini]

Amazing, each day im closer to having iCloud Photo Library!

 

[gaximus]

Still farrrr behind Google

Does Google's Face recognition work on device? or does it get send to a server for processing?

 

[_Spinn_]

I love that they do all this locally on device.

 

[scottrobertson]

Does Google's Face recognition work on device? or does it get send to a server for processing?

Server. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s so much better.

 

[tongxinshe]

I have mixed feelings about this.

No doubt it is cool and useful for those who will take advantage of these capabilities in keeping track of their photo libraries, things like that.

At the same time the surveillance aspects of this technology are very worrying, thinking especially at how certain other countries seem to be using it (looking at you, China).

NSA is far ahead of China in any of the surveillance aspects. Also, NSA monitors every person in the world, while China only monitors Chinese citizens.

 

[bobmans]

Does it affect the photos app (as standalone w/o iPhone) on Mac, too? Or only in combination that it gets synced?

I'd assume M1 macs would be able to do it on device without any syncing, not sure if photos app on mac actually does that though

 

[rbgaynor]

I have mixed feelings about this.

No doubt it is cool and useful for those who will take advantage of these capabilities in keeping track of their photo libraries, things like that.

At the same time the surveillance aspects of this technology are very worrying, thinking especially at how certain other countries seem to be using it (looking at you, China).

This is being done on-device, not sure how there's any significant surveillance aspect.

 

[wigby]

Still farrrr behind Google

Not in terms of on-device processing. I believe Apple is ahead there which is great for privacy and security.

 

[jeffhayford]

But does it write the metadata to the file or is it locked on the phone forever like heart ratings?!

 

[bounty1097]

will it recognize ugly people, like me, though?

 

[adampk17]

I use google photos. So ty Apple but I'll pass.

Yeah, I used to use Google Photos too. But I don't trust Google enough any more.