Apple AI photos to allow changing limbs, expressions and reality
Apple has dumped its commitment to photo realism, unveiling new AI tools that will let users generate fake and altered images with no visible watermark – what do you think of the AI updates?
READING LEVEL: ORANGE
A sneak peek at Apple’s powerful new AI photo features reveals a big shift away from the tech giant’s longstanding commitment to photo realism*.
Apple has previously protected the integrity* of photos taken on its phones by limiting what users could do to them. That has all changed with coming iOS free upgrades for phones, iPad and Mac devices, announced at its annual worldwide developer conference (WWDC26) in California, USA.
The Courier Mail’s digital editor Mark Furler, reporting from the conference, played with the beta version of the upgrade overnight Wednesday (AEST) and was quite surprised by what users could do.
In the photo app itself, there were new tools to clean up and remove unwanted distractions in images.
If, for example, your parents took a picture of you but there was a chair or object in the way, they could select the obstacle*, remove it and fill the space.
Mr Furler tried the tool using a picture of his dogs. With the new features, the app added a leg on one dog where it was obscured and a tail on the other.
“The result was surprisingly realistic,” Mr Furler said. “ … In one, though, the extension created a foreshore that didn’t look that real.”
The most fascinating upgrade according to Mr Furler was “spatial reframing”, where users could actually move a person or a group within the shot.
“While some thought the demonstration shown at the keynote* event was a little creepy, using it on your own photos provides a more authentic* and pleasant experience,” he said.
He suggested the tool would be handy when an image made it look like an object was sticking out of someone’s head, or when the background horizon clashed with the foreground.
“If it saves people having to take 50 photos to get the ‘angle’ they want, it might make for much improved family holidays, particularly for kids,” Mr Furler said.
But the line between what was real and what could be faked became blurred once Mr Furler dipped into the world of Image Playground, which previously did not have a photo realistic option. And the limitation was deliberate, as Apple set guardrails between real photographs and fantasy.
“That commitment has obviously been blown out of the water by the AI collaboration* with Google, which now allows you to pretty much create whatever fake image you want,” Mr Furler said.
“I was able to generate an almost realistic picture of myself as an F1 racing driver, change my glasses and add a wine glass to a shot.
“What was more concerning, though, was I could also grab a photo of anyone and turn it into a demon with horns, or an angry version of that person.
“I was somewhat surprised that ‘angry’ was an auto suggestion option that popped up. As a parent, the idea of schoolchildren having that option to create fakes of their friends and then post them on social media doesn’t sit well.”
He added that Apple would hopefully address such issues before releasing the final upgrade, particularly given the tech giant’s renewed commitment to making device use safer for children.
The Playground update also allowed him to generate realistic photos out of nothing.
“I asked for a photo of a boy on a beach with a dog and it generated one pretty quickly,” Mr Furler said. “I could then change the type of dog and even whether it was younger or skinnier.”
When Mr Furler interviewed Apple camera chief Jon McCormack last December, the former Queensland farm boy said he had no problem with people getting creative but he believed family photos should be real.
Mr McCormack said: “If you’re on vacation with your family, and it was kind of a dark and cloudy day … then all of a sudden, you’re just like, ‘Well, here’s the blue sky version of it’.
“You know that’s fake. The kids know that’s fake, and you look back at that in 30 years, you’re just like … I thought we got rained out on that day. What’s going on here?”
Nonetheless, Apple currently hasn’t applied a watermark* to photos that have been generated or modified by AI. Instead, it automatically embeds a hidden SynthID watermark into images altered by Apple’s generative* AI editing tools.
Apple said a visible watermark could easily be cropped out by users, whereas its option would allow people and publishers to check what’s real or not.
“It will be interesting to watch what changes Apple makes to its AI functionality after feedback from users and developers, ahead of its public release in spring,” Mr Furler said.
The writer travelled as a guest of Apple to WWDC26 at Apple Park for outgoing CEO Tim Cook’s last keynote.
POLL
GLOSSARY
- photo realism: a painting, drawing and now AI image style in which pictures look like real photographs
- integrity: being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change
- obstacle: something that gets in your way by blocking your view, progress or action
- keynote: the main idea or central principle of a speech, program, thought or action
- authentic: genuine, real, true, what people say it is
- watermark: a method of marking content to transmit extra information, like authenticity, and which cannot be removed, showing who created or owns the file
EXTRA READING
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Is this ‘humanoid’ a real robot?
AI imagines snow falling in Sydney
QUICK QUIZ
- How has Apple Apple previously protected the integrity of photos taken on its phones?
- What reason did Apple give for not applying a visible watermark?
- What kind of photos should be kept from AI enhancements, according to Apple camera chief Jon McCormack?
- Digital editor Mark Furler was surprised by which auto suggestion that popped up in Image Playground?
- What did the spatial reframing tool allow Mr Furler to do while testing the new Apple photo tools?
LISTEN TO THIS STORY
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. What would you change?
Write a list of changes that you think Apple could make to the new photo features. The purpose of the changes is to keep users under 16 safe online but still keep the creative features that will help everyone create better images.
Time: allow at least 20 minutes for this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical Education, Information Technologies
2. Extension
“Photos should be about keeping true memories alive.”
Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Use information from the story and your own ideas to write convincing paragraphs on this.
Time: allow at least 25 minutes for this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical Education, Digital Technologies
VCOP ACTIVITY
Read with Kung Fu punctuation
Pair up with the article between you and stand up to make it easy to demonstrate your Kung Fu punctuation.
Practise reading one sentence at a time. Now read it again, while acting out the punctuation as you read.
Read and act three sentences before swapping with your partner.
Take two turns each.
Now ask your partner to read a sentence out loud while you try and act out the punctuation. Can you keep up? Swap over?
Try acting out two sentences – are you laughing yet?