The Magnifier app on your iPhone has an AI subject detection feature. If that's new to you, don't worry; I wasn't aware of it either. With all the excitement surrounding the well-known AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Google Bard, the little Magnifier tool has received less attention.
The iOS Magnifier app uses artificial intelligence (AI) to recognize and identify objects through the camera. It then uses spoken and on-screen text to describe the objects to you. The same detecting mechanism can be used by the app to recognize individuals and doors. This fantastic accessibility tool allows visitors who might not be able to see the environment for themselves to be given a description of it.
1. Open the Magnifier app, swipe up and tap the box icon
First up, open the Magnifier app, then swipe up on the bottom panel and tap the box icon, on the right-hand side.
2. Choose a Detection Mode and point your camera at a subject
Detection Modes will appear on the left. Tap one and then point the camera at a subject. Your iPhone will identify that subject and tell you what it sees. The middle speech bubble icon provides image descriptions of your surroundings, and acts kind of like a general purpose identification tool — it will simply try to identify whatever is on screen (here, a black camera in the screenshot on the left). By default your iPhone only displays a text description (we'll show you how to change that later). The door icon will detect doors and tell you how far away they are and their handle type (as visible in the screenshot on the right)
3. Point and speak
All of the detection modes work similarly, except point and speak. Tap the bottom icon on the left to enter point and speak. This mode detects your finger in frame and will speak what is detected. Point somewhere in frame until a yellow box appears and your phone describes what it sees. By default, this mode speaks and does not provide text descriptions (we'll show you how to tweak that next).
4. (Optional) Tap the settings cog to change settings
Now make any changes you want using the toggles. Settings are not the same for all Detection Modes. This is where you would switch between spoken results or text only results, for example.
