Apple Now Has Its Own 'Magic Eraser' for iPhones

Credit: Apple

When Apple announced Apple Intelligence, the company's suite of generative AI features, one of the new options it highlighted was "Clean Up." This new Photos feature lets you identify unwanted subjects and objects in your images, and, through the power of generative AI, remove them from your photo.

If that sounds familiar, it's because Google did it first. The company's Magic Eraser feature works much in the same way, and has evolved from a Pixel-exclusive feature to a Google Photos option on both Android and iPhone. But most iOS users don't have Google Photos, so Clean Up is likely the first generative AI-powered object-removal tool iPhone owners will have tried for themselves.

While you can't try Clean Up and other Apple Intelligence features with the latest public version of iOS, the feature is available for those who don't mind a little risk: Apple included it with the third developer beta release for iOS 18.1, the future software update that will introduce Apple Intelligence to compatible iPhones. (Right now, that's just the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.) If you enroll your compatible iPhone in the latest developer beta for iOS 18.1, you'll be able to try it out.

A disclaimer: Running any beta software on your device is risky, as the software is still currently being tested. There may be bugs or other glitches that haven't been discovered and squashed yet, which could mess with your device and its data. If you choose to install the iOS 18.1 beta, do so at your own risk.

How Apple Intelligence's "Clean Up" feature works

Once you have the latest developer beta of iOS 18.1 running on your iPhone, choose an image from Photos and hit Edit. You'll see a new Clean Up button along the bottom tool bar. Tap it, and iOS will tell you to, "Tap, brush, or circle what you want to remove." So, if you want to get rid of a photobombing seagull in your beach photo, circle it; if you want to remove a stranger from the background of a group shot, tap the person; if you want to clear some trash from the table in your image, brush over it.

While these gestures usually all work the same, apparently they can do different things in various situations. For example, you can add pixelation to people's faces in your photos by circling them, as evidenced in this post on X.