What’s new in iOS 27 Photos app: Revamped clean up and new AI editing tools

Apple is giving the Photos app one of its biggest AI upgrades yet in iOS 27. As presented during WWDC 2026, the company redesigned the Clean Up feature and added two new Apple Intelligence-based editing tools called Reframe and Expand. Together, these tools aim to make fixing, improving, and transforming photos easier than ever.

While AI photo editing is already advanced in Google Photos and Samsung Gallery, iOS 27 marks Apple’s most serious push into the space. The company is betting that seamless integration and privacy-focused processing turn the Photos app into an everyday creative tool for millions of iPhone users. Here’s everything new in the Photos app in iOS 27.

The old Photos app had a problem nobody wanted to admit

Apple has long marketed the iPhone as the world’s best camera. But the moment a photo needed serious editing, many users jumped to third-party apps. This sounds bizarre.

The company that spends billions improving iPhone photography somehow left photo repair, reframing, and intelligent editing largely to Adobe, Google, and Samsung. iOS 27 changes that equation. The Photos app is no longer just a gallery. It’s becoming an AI-powered photo studio. And honestly, it was overdue.

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However, note that you need an iPhone 15 Pro or later that supports Apple Intelligence along with iOS 27 compatibility.

Clean Up 2.0 is the feature Apple should have shipped earlier

Apple introduced Clean Up with Apple Intelligence as a way to remove distracting objects from photos. The tool identifies background elements and lets users erase them while preserving the natural look of the image. That was a solid start.

iOS 27 turns it into something much more ambitious. The new version feels less like an eraser and more like an intelligent reconstruction engine. Instead of simply deleting distractions, Apple is using its latest Apple Intelligence models to better understand the scene and rebuild missing areas more naturally.

Apple highlighted enhanced Clean Up capabilities as a key part of its next-generation image editing experience. This matters because object removal is easy. Making it look like nothing was ever there is hard. That’s where most AI editors still fail. If Apple gets this right, Clean Up could become one of the most-used AI features on the iPhone.

Extend: AI that expands your photos beyond the frame

One of the most impressive additions to the iOS 27 Photos app is Extend, a new AI-powered editing tool that can generate content beyond the edges of an existing photo.

Think of it as Apple’s answer to generative image expansion. If a photo feels too tightly cropped or wasn’t framed perfectly when it was taken, Extend can intelligently create new visual details around the original image, effectively expanding the canvas while maintaining a natural look.

While similar tools have existed on Pixel and Galaxy phones for some time, Extend represents Apple’s most ambitious use of generative AI in the Photos app to date.

Spatial Reframing might be the most underrated feature in iOS 27

Every smartphone photographer knows this pain. You take the perfect photo. Then you realize you cropped someone’s head or left too much empty space or framed the shot poorly. Traditionally, that’s game over.

The new AI-powered Reframe tool changes that by intelligently adjusting composition and rebuilding surrounding image content where needed in three dimensions. Apple showcased AI-driven photo reframing as part of its broader Apple Intelligence expansion.

This is the kind of feature that you never want to lose.

Improved iCloud Shared Albums

For many years, Shared Albums have been fantastic in Apple’s ecosystem but terrible outside it. Now, friends and family on Android and Windows can join albums through iCloud.com, upload their own photos, and participate without feeling like second-class citizens.

The bigger upgrade, though, is quality. Shared Albums now support full-resolution photos, ending the long-standing compromise where precious memories were often shared in compressed form.

Combined with reactions, better filtering, and easier invitations, Shared Albums start to feel less like a basic cloud folder and more like a true collaborative photo space.

The bigger story isn’t photos; it’s Apple Intelligence everywhere

The Photos app is really just one piece of a much larger shift happening across iOS 27.

Apple’s new generation of Apple Intelligence is becoming deeply integrated throughout the operating system, bringing AI-powered assistance, contextual understanding, image generation, and editing capabilities directly into everyday experiences.

That’s the real takeaway from WWDC 2026.

The bottom line

The most interesting thing about the iOS 27 Photos app isn’t that Apple added more AI. It’s that Apple finally found a practical use for it. Enhanced Clean Up, intelligent reframing, and new AI editing tools won’t generate the loudest headlines from WWDC. But they may end up being the features people use every single day.

For years, Apple built incredible cameras and average editing tools. iOS 27 is the first time it feels like Apple is serious about both. And if these tools work as advertised, the Photos app could quietly become one of the best reasons to own an iPhone.

What do you think about the new Photos app features? Share your opinion in the comments below!

Check it: Download official iOS 27 wallpapers for iPhone