Apple finally copies Google's Magic Eraser on iPhone with 'Clean Up'... but you need to wait (or do you?)

Apple CEO announced Apple Intelligence at WWDC, alongside many other extra features coming in iOS 18. One of these AI-powered features which photographers have long wanted to see is the equivalent to the Google Pixel's Magic Eraser which can identify and eliminated unwanted objects from photos.

Called the Clean Up tool, it can identify and remove distracting objects in the background of photos. It works in a very similar way – you can circle areas or highlight unwanted people.

If you're excited to try the tool, though, you need to remember that things shown at WWDC – while they do filter to a lot of iPhones thanks to Apple's upgrade philosophy – don't appear instantly.

WWDC is a summer conference for developers, and it began on June 10 (this was far from the only new thing for developers to get their heads around!)

The final version of iOS 18 with that feature could be a little way of – its not due until fall.

You can get it now...

But you shouldn't.

If you're prepared to run the developer beta on your phone – something most developers caution against doing on your main phone – then you can download the iOS 18 Developer Beta right now.

That, of course, comes with all the risks you can imagine – and if you also run apps related to work or perhaps have essential travel tickets on there that you wouldn't want randomly deleted by an unfinished operating system then, well, there are certainly no guarantees with a Beta!

If you're still determined to ignore common sense – or you have a spare iPhone to try it on – then go to Settings > General > Software Update > and below 'Automatic Updates' you should see an option for 'Beta Updates' where you'll find the 'iOS 18 Developer Beta'

(If you have multiple Apple devices and regularly work across them then you probably need to dive into betas on multiple platforms in an all-or-nothing way... again, on your head be it!)

What if I have more common sense?

You'll have to wait until the general release in the fall. 

Experience suggests mid-September is the time, just before the new iPhones.

An interim solution might be to at least give it a few weeks for the worst of issues to sort themselves out, but even then cross-compatibility between devices could be an issue.

One more intelligent thing...

This looks to be a Photos features, so will be on more devices. 

Apple Intelligence, however, will be quite restricted to newer devices with the needed grunt on-board; specifically iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max and M-series processor Macs and iPads.

Incidentally, if the intelligence is the main appeal and you're not based in the US, you might not get the features anyway – the feature is not coming to other territories straight away, so it might not be worth risking the beta.