At WWDC 2024, Apple announced several amazing features for iOS 18, including a major update to the Photos app. Apart from the new design, Apple has introduced several nifty features that I think you will love. So without further ado, here are five new Photos app features you need to try after updating to iOS 18.
Pro tip: Here are all iPhones eligible for iOS 18 and AI (Apple Intelligence).
1. Photo filtering
This is a feature I’ve always wanted to have, no matter which photo gallery app I use. Thanks to Apple, I can now filter screenshots from my library on my iOS 18-powered iPhone. And it doesn’t stop at screenshots – if I want, I can choose to just watch videos. This makes navigating through my photos and videos much easier. I hope Samsung or other Android manufacturers bring this feature to their native gallery apps.
2. Photo search
The search feature in the new Photos app has completely blown me away. All I have to do is tap on the search icon and type “food” and it sorts all my photos with food in them.
But that’s not all. The search feature is even crazier than I expected. When I searched for “videogame”, not only did it find all the photos and videos related to it, but it also timestamped the video wherever it found a scene depicting a videogame.
Food is just one example. I’ve also searched for receipts, lakes, mountains, and friends (I’ll talk more about this in the next section), and it worked flawlessly.
3. People and pets
In earlier versions of iOS, as of iOS 17, the Photos app could find people. But with iOS 18, Apple has taken this feature to the next level. Now, when you name a person or pet in the Photos app, you can search for, say, “Syan and Prateek” and it will only show photos with Cyan and Prateek.
The search feature within the app works so well that if you want to see a clip of your friend’s meal, just type the prompt and it will find it for you. This feature makes it very easy for me to find old photos and videos of my favorite memories.
4. Wallpaper suggestions
This may not be for everyone, but personally, I love it. I enjoy photography but never really thought about setting any of my photos as wallpaper until now. The Photos app in iOS 18 automatically selects the best-looking pictures from my library and suggests them as lock screen and home screen wallpapers. What’s more, it also adds filters to photos. If I had to rate the wallpaper suggestions, I would give them an 8 out of 10. It takes the guesswork out of the equation.
Also Read: 13 Must-Know Tips to Perfectly Customize Your iPhone Lock Screen
5. Utilities
Remember the Utilities section in the Albums tab? It has become more useful in iOS 18. Now, it categorizes your photos into multiple sets of utilities, such as QR codes, documents, drawings, receipts, signatures and more. Simply put, if your photo contains a document, it will create a document folder in the Utilities section.
That’s it for now. I hope that after updating to iOS 18, you will enjoy exploring the new features in the Photos app. Meanwhile, feel free to check out the other iOS 18 features we’ve covered.