Now, iOS 16 is out of beta and available to most iPhone users. Those who get their hands on it for the first time with the iPhone 14 or older compatible devices get to grips with its new features, including lock screen customization, new-look notifications, and editable iMessage messages.
But an awesome new feature is wowing people, thanks to a viral TikTok video (opens in a new tab) showing exactly how easy it is to instantly crop objects from photos. As of this writing, he is approaching 500,000 likes.
@frankmcshan (opens in a new tab)
♬ Put your head on my shoulder – Giulia Di Nicolantonio (opens in a new tab)
In the video, an adorable dog is instantly cropped from a photo, before being pasted into iMessages without any clutter in the background. It’s truly remarkable, even though it was something Apple originally revealed back in July.
How to isolate, copy and share topics in iOS 16
As promised, I’m now the owner of a shiny new iPhone 14 Pro, so I can walk you through how it’s done. Note, however, that it relies on the machine learning and image analysis features introduced with the A12 Bionic chip. Concretely, this means that only iPhones from 2018 (i.e.: iPhone XS and iPhone XR) and later can do this.
1. Find a photo with a well-defined subject that you want to crop. Here’s my old Hamilton looking suitably dashing.
2. Press and hold the subject you want to isolate until a bright white line appears around the edge and release. You will now see the option to copy to your clipboard or share directly to another app.
3. There you go — Hamilton is now the only focus of this WhatsApp message.
This is all very impressive and reminds me of another brilliant iOS feature that a friend of mine recently found by accident, where you can also copy and paste text from saved images.
It works pretty much the same way. Simply open an image containing text, tap on the text, then adjust the selection points to the part you want to copy. Here it works its magic on my Kindle Paperwhite’s lock screen:
Still getting familiar with your new iPhone? Be sure to read our collection of iOS 16 tips and tricks for more cool features you’ll want to check out.
