iOS 15: How to Use Live Text to Copy and Paste Text From Photos

[400]

Nice.
Inherited the family history files and many grave stones photographed, just tried a few and sort of there. Sure I can find a way to fit this in where it picks up the text.
Though many stones are too old, some documents script illegible but still, something to try. Hope it improves.

 

[nickawhite]

Have to admit - Google registering the domain used in Apple's promotional materials and putting up a "Android is Best" website is pretty hilarious. Tip of the hat, Google. Better than the usual tired anti-Apple campaigns (looking at you, Intel). Just wish the website was a bit more biting. "Looking to convert a photo to text? Try an OS that has been doing it for years."

 

[svish]

Of course a very useful feature. Will definitely be using this in iOS 15

 

[theadz01]

Does it work if you take a screenshot of something?

 

[Alfieg]

Yes, it works with a screenshot.

It doesn't work with Live Photos however. You need to edit the photo and turn off Live Photo first, which is a pain.

 

[NightFox]

Typo towards the end of the article:

Live Photos Text also works with the camera app and other images on the iPhone...

 

[NightFox]

Have to admit - Google registering the domain used in Apple's promotional materials and putting up a "Android is Best" website is pretty hilarious. Tip of the hat, Google. Better than the usual tired anti-Apple campaigns (looking at you, Intel). Just wish the website was a bit more biting. "Looking to convert a photo to text? Try an OS that has been doing it for years."

I'm not sure it's Google who've done that, considering the domain was registered through Epik - not a company who'd I expect Google to want to associate itself with looking at their Wikipedia entry:

Epik is known for providing services to websites with far-right content, such as the social network Gab, video hosting service BitChute, conspiracy theory website InfoWars, and neo-Nazi message board website The Daily Stormer. It was described in 2019 by Vice as "a safehaven for the extreme right" and in 2021 by The Seattle Times as "a home for far-right websites" because of its willingness to host far-right websites that have been denied service by other Internet service providers. In 2021, The Daily Telegraph wrote that Epik was "a safe harbour for websites said to be enabling the spread far-right extremism and carrying Neo-Nazi content"; the same year, Fortune called the company the "right wing’s best friend online". NPR reported in February 2021 that "when websites flooded with hate speech or harmful disinformation become too radioactive for the Internet, the sites often turn to [Epik] for a lifeline."

 

[ProfessionalFan]

It works really well

 

[Susurs]

Does not work on iPad Pro 11, Public Beta.

 

[SurferPup]

This works really well coping text accurately except for the last word, 'Lassen'. Wardaddy (Brad Pitt's character in the movie, 'Fury') quotes for the first sign hung over a child, "I'm a coward and refuse to fight for the German people." However,
"ICH WOLLTE MEINE
KINDER
NICHT KÄMPFEN Lassen." which translates literally to, 'I will not let my children fight.' This detecting text from images is going to be useful.

 

[Kramerjn]

Love this feature! Saves so much time.

I had to look up my AC Condenser unit model number (which is about 16 characters long) two weeks ago. Rather than type in a few letters, look, type in a few letters, etc, I was able to use this feature and have it entered in DuckDuckGo before I would've even finished typing it. It's saved me a lot of time already in just a few weeks of having it.

 

[asiga]

This feature is an example of the trends I don't like. Don't take me wrong, I like the idea of having an OCR at my disposal integrated with the camera app, but I want to invoke it when I want. I don't want the app looking for text "automagically".

All these trends leading to an "automagical" life are no longer creepy... they are just sad now, because the creepy part is taken for granted.

 

[MozMan68]

Finally, something that wasn't mentioned that is quite useful.

It was actually a significant part of the WWDC announcnement.

The way Apple has integrated it into text input fields like Contacts is awesome.

I didn't think to use it until I went into contacts to add a personal email address a coworker had sent to me in a Teams chat. It came up as an option in Contacts to add via the photo capture method, I pressed on that which opened up a small video windoe which I then pointed to the chat on my laptop screen. It quickly grabbed the email addressed and I accepted it into the contact field. So great!

 

[rrbill]

Does anybody know how to turn this feature off? I can see the usefulness of it, but for all intents and purposes it’s making browsing the Internet more annoying and I do not want this feature to be on by default

 

[Autococonut]

It´s not working on my Iphone X running public Beta 15.0

 

[nintendoswitch]

It doesn’t work for me. When I try it will just move the picture around.

 

[nickawhite]

I'm not sure it's Google who've done that, considering the domain was registered through Epik

Interesting! Thanks for the additional sleuthing - I didn’t even think to check who created it. Do you think this group is just looking to create mischief? To what end? And agree that Google wouldn’t want to be associated with it if the described group is behind it.

 

[NightFox]

Interesting! Thanks for the additional sleuthing - I didn’t even think to check who created it. Do you think this group is just looking to create mischief? To what end? And agree that Google wouldn’t want to be associated with it if the described group is behind it.

The domain was registered through Epik, it wasn't them who registered it or set up the forward to the Android page. So it could be anyone who registered it - you or me for example - even Google. Epik has gained the reputation of being the 'domain provider of choice' for so many far-right organisations but that doesn't mean everyone who uses Epik is far-right; I'm sure it has many 'normal' customers too. However, it's very unlikely that Google would want any business association with them so I think it's fair to assume this was just done as a prank by an individual rather than being a stroke of marketing genius by Google.

 

[Johnny Jackhammer]

Love this feature! Saves so much time.

This feature already existed but wasn’t user accessible. I was standing in front of a display at Costco, took a photo of the product then went to search for it in iOS 14. Typed in the first two characters of the full name and the product website popped up as the first hit. The letters I typed were “Li”. Guess what product. iOS knew instantly.

IMHO these features are double edged swords. They are getting far more from us then we are getting from their free software.

 

[MozMan68]

This feature already existed but wasn’t user accessible. I was standing in front of a display at Costco, took a photo of the product then went to search for it in iOS 14. Typed in the first two characters of the full name and the product website popped up as the first hit. The letters I typed were “Li”. Guess what product. iOS knew instantly.

IMHO these features are double edged swords. They are getting far more from us then we are getting from their free software.

As long as it stays with the user (as Apple claims) I think it’s awesome.

What I hate is that I turn on every privacy feature available and turn off all tracking I can find, yet Instagram and Facebook constantly show me ads for stuff I may have just “talked” about and not searched online. What’s up with that??

 

[Kaptajn Haddock]

Seems to be language dependent, wont work on my iPhone 11 with Danish OS.

 

[hofer]

Even if the phone is running iOS 15, some older phones are not supporting the feature. I wish these articles state that.

Yeah - very disappointed that it doesn't work on my iPhone X

 

[Prince Akeem]

Bummer that this feature is not available on my iPhone 12 (set to Dutch region).

[EDIT] Turns out that it's turned off by default here. The setting to enable Live text is deeply hidden away in Preferences, region settings. After that, it warns that only a few languages are supported, before it enables. Still seems to work for Dutch texts anyway...

 

[reggoboy]

Great coverage, as always.

Did you know that Live Text also features optical character recognition? That means if you have a picture of a handwritten note in your photos, you can still copy it and then paste it as digital text.

Just fyi, it doesn't have to be handwriting to be OCR. OCR just means reading graphical (optical) information and converting it to (typically) ASCII (digital). So you can OCR the printed page of a book, or you can OCR and handwritten page. The former usually results in a much higher confidence rate, so obviously if Apple can OCR handwriting reliably, that will be pretty cool to see.

I wonder if they're exhuming Newton code for this effort

 

[Rafagon]

Even if the phone is running iOS 15, some older phones are not supporting the feature. I wish these articles state that.

Even an Indian website did a better job than MacRumors in their article. They do mention which iPhones support the feature.

Here's the link:

Apple iOS 15’s ‘Live Text’ feature: Here’s how it works and why is it so useful

Apple’s iOS 15 brings a major feature to the camera and it is called ‘Live Text’. Here's how it works on the iPhone, iPad.

indianexpress.com