Your iPhone is getting powerful, Photoshop-like AI features with a future update

Dynamic Island on iPhone 16 Pro Max — (Image credit: Rik Henderson / Future)

Quick Summary

New AI-powered features are coming to Photos with iOS 27, it's claimed.

The software will reportedly add Extend, Enhance and Reframe features to the built-in photo library app.

We’re coming up to that time of year when all of Apple's new software features are due to be announced. The company will host its annual Worldwide Developer Conference over a week, starting on 8 June, with a keynote on the first day.

What new photo editing features could be coming?

According to Bloomberg, (via 9to5Mac), there will be three editing features coming to the Photos app with iOS 27 under a new “Apple Intelligence Tools” section. It’s claimed these three features will include Extend, Enhance and Reframe, and all will apparently enable you to make changes to your pictures within a “few seconds”.

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The Bloomberg report claims that “Extend” will let you “generate additional image content beyond the original frame”. Going into more detail with an example, it says that "someone could take a close-up photo of a landmark and use the tool to fill in surrounding scenery".

Meanwhile, the Enhance feature will use AI to improve the quality of the image, while also focusing on lighting and colour aspects. Lastly, Reframe is claimed to allow users to “shift perspective” of spatial photos.

Before you get too excited though, the Bloomberg report also said that development of the new photo editing features “hadn’t gone entirely smoothly”, adding that the Extend and Reframe tools “don’t perform reliably during internal testing”.

The report added that this could result in Apple delaying or scaling them back.

Nothing is official for now, of course, but adding these kinds of image editing features to the Photos app will be a big win for users who don’t have access to photo editing software like Photoshop.

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Britta is a freelance technology journalist who has been writing about tech for over a decade. She's covered all consumer tech from phones, tablets and wearables to smart home and beauty tech, with everything in between. She has a fashion journalism degree from London College of Fashion and previously did a long stint as deputy editor of Pocket-lint, but you’ll now find her byline on several titles including GQ, the Express, the Mirror, TechRadar, Stuff and iMore. You'll never find her without her Apple Watch on, aiming to complete her rings so she can justify the extra bar of chocolate and she loves a good iPhone trick.