See iOS 10's New Photos App in Action

The Photos app in iOS 10 has been updated with what Apple calls "Siri intelligence," which essentially equates to new deep learning techniques and advanced facial and object recognition algorithms.

Using these tools, Photos is able to scan a user's entire photo library, intelligently detecting people, animals, places, and objects and grouping photos together in a logical way based on those parameters. As can be seen in the video below, this enables powerful searching capabilities, allowing users to search for "cats" to bring up their images of cats, or "mountains" to find all images taken of mountains.


New to Photos on iOS is a "People" album, housing all of a user's images featuring people, grouped based on facial recognition, and there's a world map that shows the physical location where each of a user's photos were taken.

Perhaps the best new feature in Photos is a "Memories" tab that uses all of the image recognition, date, and location information to aggregate photos based around certain days, vacation trips, family events, and more, so your photos can be revisited on a regular basis. With Memories, there are options to watch quick video montages of photos, which are set to music.

Also new in the iOS 10 Photos app are Live Filters that work with Live Photos and new Markup tools for annotating photos.

The new features in Photos are powered by a device's GPU with all learning done on a device-by-device basis to ensure full privacy. Apple has made it clear that it does not see images or image metadata. When using the new Photos features, each device with a photo library will need to scan images independently -- there is no iCloud link yet.

In case you missed them, make sure to check out our seven minute WWDC 2016 video, which features a quick rundown on all of the new iOS, macOS Sierra, tvOS, and watchOS features Apple introduced this week, and our video highlighting iOS 10's overhauled Lock screen. stay tuned to MacRumors for more in-depth software videos.

Related Forum: iOS 10

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Shows Off a Key Reason to Upgrade to the iPhone 17

Saturday February 7, 2026 9:26 am PST by
Apple today shared an ad that shows how the upgraded Center Stage front camera on the latest iPhones improves the process of taking a group selfie. "Watch how the new front facing camera on iPhone 17 Pro takes group selfies that automatically expand and rotate as more people come into frame," says Apple. While the ad is focused on the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, the regular iPhone...
apple wallet drivers license feature iPhone 15 pro

Apple Says These 7 U.S. States Plan to Offer iPhone Driver's Licenses

Monday February 9, 2026 6:24 am PST by
In select U.S. states, residents can add their driver's license or state ID to the Apple Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch, and then use it to display proof of identity or age at select airports and businesses, and in select apps. The feature is currently available in 13 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, and it is expected to launch in at least seven more in the future. To set up the...
Apple Logo Zoomed

Apple Expected to Launch These 10+ Products Over the Coming Months

Tuesday February 10, 2026 6:33 am PST by
It has been a slow start to 2026 for Apple product launches, with only a new AirTag and a special Apple Watch band released so far. We are still waiting for MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, the iPhone 17e, a lower-cost MacBook with an iPhone chip, long-rumored updates to the Apple TV and HomePod mini, and much more. Apple is expected to release/update the following products...
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

New MacBook Pros Could Now Arrive in March

Sunday February 8, 2026 6:02 am PST by
New MacBook Pro models with the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips could arrive as soon as Monday, March 2, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. In today's "Power On" newsletter, Gurman said that the release of new MacBook Pro models is tied to the release of macOS Tahoe 26.3. The launch is said to be slated for as early as the week of March 2. He added that the M4 Pro and M4 Max models on sale today...
m5 macbook pro deal

Why You Shouldn't Buy the Next MacBook Pro

Tuesday February 10, 2026 4:27 pm PST by
Apple is planning to launch new MacBook Pro models as soon as early March, but if you can, this is one generation you should skip because there's something much better in the works. We're waiting on 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, with few changes other than the processor upgrade. There won't be any tweaks to the design or the display, but later this...

Top Rated Comments

vmistery Avatar
126 months ago
Photos of cats: 3837162689292 matches found
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
RDeckard Avatar
126 months ago
hopefully you can disable that feature. seems like a huge privacy breach.
I don't think you know what a privacy breach is.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Klae17 Avatar
126 months ago
I tried it with the "Best of 3 months" setting. Played my trip to PHX, my puppies, family pics, nudes, screenshots of conversations on Tinder, and some food and memes. Not exactly what I was expecting for my friends to see lol.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Gudi Avatar
126 months ago
All I want the photos app to do is play my gifs.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
melsea Avatar
126 months ago
Looks good, but how will this interact with the faces tags which I have done on my mac in Photos? Will the assembled albums also sync and appear on the mac?
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kirky29 Avatar
126 months ago
It's the simple things that Photos lacks for me.... like being able to rotate an image without having to edit > press the cropping tool > rotate > save.

Also it would be a nice addition if Screen Rotation would disable itself when you've got an image or video open.

I'd like to be able to find out file sizes too... and sort by date (Ascending/Descending), File size, etc.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)