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iOS 18: Master the New Search Features in the Photos App
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this article is talking about "iOS 18" (per the title), and "natural language" search, but isn't that a feature of iOS 18.1 (and not part of 18.0)?
at least I'm not having any luck with searches like "dad smiling" in 18.0 (I get a single match, which is a text based match that had both of those words in it)
if it's supposed to work in 18.0, is there a setting I need to enable?
at least I'm not having any luck with searches like "dad smiling" in 18.0 (I get a single match, which is a text based match that had both of those words in it)
if it's supposed to work in 18.0, is there a setting I need to enable?
Photos search fails miserably for “yellow car”. It shows no car of any color. The top results for “car” are all a yellow car.
It’s sad how bad Photos search has been for so long. Apple seems to be unable to make it work as well as the competition. It leaves me worried that the overall AI effort will be stillborn.
It’s sad how bad Photos search has been for so long. Apple seems to be unable to make it work as well as the competition. It leaves me worried that the overall AI effort will be stillborn.
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The new video player is absolutely horrible. The looping back to the start of a video over and over is infuriating. I have no idea who thought of that or why you can’t switch it off. Who wants that behaviour?
Also the photos continually jump around the place. Take a new photo and because it tries to line all 3 photos at the bottom up, the library all jumps around next time you open it. Similar in some moments or people albums, it’s constantly jumping around at a level which triggers motion sickness.
Siri, for a brief period of time was able to search your photos and I was really hoping that with 18.1 the Apple Intelligence features they would bring that back. It was very, very helpful not to have to type out what you were looking for, and obviously it didn’t require Apple Intelligence for that feature to work. I wonder if Apple thinks we have forgotten that for a brief period in time it was a feature.
Because I have all of my families‘ old photos from the black-and-white days, I have marked those photos in the caption area with a B&W. Putting it in the caption area seems to work for me. Maybe it requires more than one special character?
Anyone knows if any criteria for the new search to work as described by macrumors? eg. Is part of Apple Intelligence? Or lowest model, ip15?
I did not feel the new search had become powerful. It is still working like keyword search. When I type in the search field, it prompts for changing different keywords.
Like i typed “dad in red clothes”, it interpreted “in” as other words starting with “in” and then ignore it, it did not match clothes but prompt for clothing.
It missed color too. Typed “mum in xxx hat”, it worked for blue hat but not for yellow hat.
Tried the examples in macrumors, like “pizza with mushrooms“. It did hit any. How could a pizza be without mushrooms?!
The new search looks like the same old search with a revamped UI. I did not feel it works for natural language.
The previous design was quite literally better. This new Photos reminds me of a Meta Inc. "redesign".
2 up to 4 (maybe 5) has unlimited storage but with compression.
It is basically the same old keyword search with revamped UI. I did not feel it works for natural language.
It too failed to locate photos of “yellow” hat.
I'm loving the new Photos app.
Both in finding past photos by scrolling a dynamically (pinch in - pinch out) resizable grid (a killer feature), and now simply verbally asking for the photos I'm looking for using multiple criteria. And it does it in a fraction of a second.
I'm quite shocked it works so well. And it's a huge timesaver having a ton of photos on my phone, going back to 2010.
Both in finding past photos by scrolling a dynamically (pinch in - pinch out) resizable grid (a killer feature), and now simply verbally asking for the photos I'm looking for using multiple criteria. And it does it in a fraction of a second.
I'm quite shocked it works so well. And it's a huge timesaver having a ton of photos on my phone, going back to 2010.
Omg I’m in the same boat as you. Using Siri to search my photo album simply doesn’t work at all. It did work in the past to show me specific pictures at locations. How do I know if it’s indexing?
As I get older, I start to understand why old people are often so rude and angry.
You get used to something. Perhaps you even like it. Then it gets taken away from you and replaced with something inferior. On iOS/macOS this is something you have to deal with every year. Every year something I use is taken away.
My elderly mother is in tears every year because she has to keep relearning how to use her phone and computer. Maybe that would be ok if things were for the better, but they never are. UI peaked a long time ago, and now it’s just change for the sake of change.
You get used to something. Perhaps you even like it. Then it gets taken away from you and replaced with something inferior. On iOS/macOS this is something you have to deal with every year. Every year something I use is taken away.
My elderly mother is in tears every year because she has to keep relearning how to use her phone and computer. Maybe that would be ok if things were for the better, but they never are. UI peaked a long time ago, and now it’s just change for the sake of change.
Should we give users a customisable tab bar for their most-needed views, like we had in Music for iOS 1?
Nah, let's just make everything scrolling gestures and popup menu buttons. Where's the fun in browsing your photos when you don't have to guess where everything is, or whether you scrolled a few pixels to far and closed your album?
Nah, let's just make everything scrolling gestures and popup menu buttons. Where's the fun in browsing your photos when you don't have to guess where everything is, or whether you scrolled a few pixels to far and closed your album?
Maybe I'm the weird one... but after a trip or a series of events, I transfer my photos to my Mac, where I back them up.
I keep a selection of photos in my iPhone, similar to the photos people use to carry in their wallets
It's crazy to me that people keep all their photos in their device.
I'm an elder millennial and I'm borderline OCD, haha
I keep a selection of photos in my iPhone, similar to the photos people use to carry in their wallets
It's crazy to me that people keep all their photos in their device.
I'm an elder millennial and I'm borderline OCD, haha
It’s not a guide to use... the title specifically says “master”, not to just use. It has new and additional feature people may not know about. Nothing is “wrong”.
Scroll too far up an album and it exits the album instead of "bouncing". No more swipe left / < button to go back, you have to hit the new, badly-positioned X button in the top right corner. Same with a photo. No more swipe left to go back … except from the search results. There you still get the < option as well as a "Done" button instead of an X.
There's no reason for such inconsistencies, especially since some things are inconsistent with other applications while others are not even self-consistent within Photos.
Then tack on the fact you can sort by "recently added" or by "date captured" but you can't sort up vs down.
Then tack on the fact that the sort options show up in between the photo library and the first "collection" that you have configured, but it only shows up if you scroll that collection off the bottom of the screen.
All the automatic zooming in and out in landscape mode is incredibly irritating, too.
Just a terrible, amateurish UI.
There's no reason for such inconsistencies, especially since some things are inconsistent with other applications while others are not even self-consistent within Photos.
Then tack on the fact you can sort by "recently added" or by "date captured" but you can't sort up vs down.
Then tack on the fact that the sort options show up in between the photo library and the first "collection" that you have configured, but it only shows up if you scroll that collection off the bottom of the screen.
All the automatic zooming in and out in landscape mode is incredibly irritating, too.
Just a terrible, amateurish UI.
still curious if the people having success with the natural language search are using 18.1 beta (with Apple Intelligence), and if the people (like me) unable to use these new search features are all still on 18.0 (no AI)
google tells me that natural language search comes with 18.1, but this article makes no distinction (seems to imply it should work with all iOS 18 versions)
google tells me that natural language search comes with 18.1, but this article makes no distinction (seems to imply it should work with all iOS 18 versions)
When I type a search into the Photos app, the results screen indicates that indexing is still running:
Well mine isn’t indexing but using siri to search still doesn’t work. I wonder if using the optimize photo library option vs downloading all to phone has anything to do with it
i noticed that when I choose Search on my iPad (iPadOS 18.0), I get suggestions like “Tangier in the Summer” (I was there this past summer). if I click on their suggestion (or type “Tangier in the Summer”), I get zero results.
doing the same on my iPhone (also iOS 18.0, same photo library), I get results.
neither shows any indication that it’s still indexing. but, it seems that the iPad’s photo library index must be ‘bad’.
i wonder if there’s any way to force a re-index
doing the same on my iPhone (also iOS 18.0, same photo library), I get results.
neither shows any indication that it’s still indexing. but, it seems that the iPad’s photo library index must be ‘bad’.
i wonder if there’s any way to force a re-index