The Photos app for iPhone, iPad and Mac is packed with artificial intelligence. This is not only used for creating retrospectives, people or sharing suggestions. Search is also drastically expanded thanks to this technology.
Locally on your iPhone, iPad and Mac, the photo library is thoroughly indexed and analyzed. You can then search for all kinds of things that are present in the photo or video. Since iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma, you can also search Live Photos and videos based on sounds.
Search in Photos
Using artificial intelligence, the iPhone, iPad and Mac can search for photos based on various visual criteria. The software analyzes the content of the photos, such as objects, colors and faces, to deliver relevant results. This allows users to quickly and easily navigate through their photo library and find specific items. You can search for bicycles, mountains, trees, people, locations, times, etc.
Sounds as search
Since iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma, users can search the Photos application based on sounds in videos and Live Photos. For example, enter the search queries laughing, clapping, shouting, music, talking, etc. and Photos will do the rest.
Videos and Live Photos only
Of course you can only search for sounds in videos, but also in Live Photos. This is because these special photos have a ‘mini video’ that plays as soon as you press and hold or play the photo. This allows iOS, iPadOS and macOS to also search these ‘photos’ based on sound.