3 ms·

iPhones have all sorts of little niceties that are directly enabled by good ML performance. For example, automatic OCR of text within images, even on websites.

iPhones have all sorts of little niceties that are directly enabled by good ML performance. For example, automatic OCR of text within images, even on websites. I think the facial recognition for grouping photos by person is also done locally by the ML chip.

baybal2 3y ago
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ssijak 3y ago
Everything in photos ML related is done locally. I guess that is one of the reasons results are not great for now.
- msoad 3y ago
  Yes OCR is better on GPT4V but my iPhone does it faster and without a network call. The difference is not that great at least in this use case
  - ssijak 3y ago
    OCR is fine but photo tagging in photo app is very bad
alpaca128 3y ago
They even recognize objects within pictures so you can search pictures via their contents. It seems to work offline, though it can take a while for the phone to run it.
- andylynch 3y ago
  This feature works surprisingly well- for example, at some point my IPhone recently gained the ability to recognise individual pets by name. This was super exciting for my kid!
geraldhh 3y ago
the features you mention exclusively run when the device is not in use (night time, on mains) so performance should be secondary concern
jeroenhd 3y ago
Automatic OCR works fine on my Android phone through a custom ROM with the Pixel software. No internet connection or ML hardware needed; OCR isn't all that demanding. I'm not sure about the facial recognition features, I don't use that stuff but I imagine Android phones mostly do that in the cloud. If Apple's ML chip helps there then that's good for them, but I can't say I'd buy an iPhone for a gimmick like that.
- piva00 3y ago
  > I'm not sure about the facial recognition features, I don't use that stuff but I imagine Android phones mostly do that in the cloud. If Apple's ML chip helps there then that's good for them, but I can't say I'd buy an iPhone for a gimmick like that. I wouldn't call it a "gimmick", it's a feature that a lot of mainstream users depend on to find pictures of loved ones. My parents use it all the time to rummage through photos and find pictures of my niece, or an old picture of my dead grandparents.
  - chmod775 3y ago
    "depend" is too strong a word, given that you can accomplish the same task (finding pictures) manually as well. Also given the typical accuracy of these systems, you'll find many more pictures if you do it manually. On some photos of my dad's 60th birthday, there are 7+ people in frame and the fancy AI recognizes absolutely nobody - including my dad having a conversation front and center, who was only slightly turning his head away from the camera. Humans use a lot more than just facial recongition, meanwhile this AI stuff seems overly focused on it. I reckon most people could recognize Donald Trump or Angela Merkel even from behind, using clues from the surrounding, their dress, stature, and hair. I'd wager you can recognize your loved ones from any angle very reliably. Can your AI? Honestly in my personal experience the best way to accomplish such a thing is still to order by date, because you, holding your camara/phone, move continously through time/space. Pictures of a certain person usually occur together and aren't randomly distributed. An exception is maybe your SO and others you may take a photo of on a whim.
    - eklavya 3y ago

baybal2 3y ago

[dead]

ssijak 3y ago

Everything in photos ML related is done locally. I guess that is one of the reasons results are not great for now.

msoad 3y ago
Yes OCR is better on GPT4V but my iPhone does it faster and without a network call. The difference is not that great at least in this use case
- ssijak 3y ago
  OCR is fine but photo tagging in photo app is very bad

alpaca128 3y ago

They even recognize objects within pictures so you can search pictures via their contents. It seems to work offline, though it can take a while for the phone to run it.

andylynch 3y ago
This feature works surprisingly well- for example, at some point my IPhone recently gained the ability to recognise individual pets by name. This was super exciting for my kid!

geraldhh 3y ago

the features you mention exclusively run when the device is not in use (night time, on mains) so performance should be secondary concern

jeroenhd 3y ago

Automatic OCR works fine on my Android phone through a custom ROM with the Pixel software. No internet connection or ML hardware needed; OCR isn't all that demanding. I'm not sure about the facial recognition features, I don't use that stuff but I imagine Android phones mostly do that in the cloud. If Apple's ML chip helps there then that's good for them, but I can't say I'd buy an iPhone for a gimmick like that.

piva00 3y ago
> I'm not sure about the facial recognition features, I don't use that stuff but I imagine Android phones mostly do that in the cloud. If Apple's ML chip helps there then that's good for them, but I can't say I'd buy an iPhone for a gimmick like that. I wouldn't call it a "gimmick", it's a feature that a lot of mainstream users depend on to find pictures of loved ones. My parents use it all the time to rummage through photos and find pictures of my niece, or an old picture of my dead grandparents.
- chmod775 3y ago
  "depend" is too strong a word, given that you can accomplish the same task (finding pictures) manually as well. Also given the typical accuracy of these systems, you'll find many more pictures if you do it manually. On some photos of my dad's 60th birthday, there are 7+ people in frame and the fancy AI recognizes absolutely nobody - including my dad having a conversation front and center, who was only slightly turning his head away from the camera. Humans use a lot more than just facial recongition, meanwhile this AI stuff seems overly focused on it. I reckon most people could recognize Donald Trump or Angela Merkel even from behind, using clues from the surrounding, their dress, stature, and hair. I'd wager you can recognize your loved ones from any angle very reliably. Can your AI? Honestly in my personal experience the best way to accomplish such a thing is still to order by date, because you, holding your camara/phone, move continously through time/space. Pictures of a certain person usually occur together and aren't randomly distributed. An exception is maybe your SO and others you may take a photo of on a whim.
  - eklavya 3y ago