Remember when Apple's Clean Up tool would try to erase your ex from a photo and accidentally replace them with a cursed blob of pixels that looked like something from a fever dream? Well, apparently Apple heard our collective screams into the void, because according to a hands-on report from Lifehacker, the upgraded version is actually doing its job now.
The comeback kid of AI photo editing
Clean Up - Apple's answer to Google's Magic Eraser - has reportedly leveled up in a meaningful way. The tool, which lets you remove unwanted objects or people from your photos, is now producing results that don't make you immediately want to close the app and pretend none of this ever happened. That's not nothing. In the AI photo editing space, 'not horrifying' is practically a standing ovation.
The core promise here is simple: point at the thing you don't want in your photo, tap, and watch it disappear. What's changed is that the disappearing act now actually looks like magic rather than a crime scene.
But hold the confetti
Here's where it gets spicy. While Clean Up is apparently having its redemption arc, the rest of Apple's AI image-editing suite is described as decidedly hit-or-miss. So if you were hoping Apple Intelligence had cracked the code on all things photo manipulation, pump those brakes just a little.
This is pretty on-brand for big tech AI rollouts, honestly. You get one tool that works beautifully and three others that make you question whether the engineers actually looked at the output before shipping it. It's the buffet problem - one incredible dish surrounded by things you politely pretend to consider.
Why this actually matters
For regular people who just want to clean up a beach photo without hiring a Photoshop wizard, a working Clean Up tool is genuinely useful. Not every photo edit needs to be a production. Sometimes you just want to remove that random stranger who wandered into your otherwise perfect shot, and you want to do it in under ten seconds without a subscription to Creative Cloud.
Apple baking this into the native Photos app - on your device, no extra downloads - is the kind of quiet convenience that makes a real difference in daily life. When it works, it's the kind of feature that makes you go 'oh, okay, I get it now.'
The lesson here is probably to give Clean Up a genuine second chance if you wrote it off before. Just maybe don't expect the full AI photo editing suite to blow your mind just yet. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.
