iOS 15 Live Text and Visual Look Up vs. Google Lens: How they compare

(Epitome credit: Tom's Guide)

iOS fifteen brings some new intelligence to your phone in the form of Live Text and Visual Look Upwards. Both features draw heavily on the neural engine that'due south part of your iPhone's processor and work to turn the phone'southward camera into a device that doesn't just capture pictures simply tin also analyze what's in the photos and let you exercise more than with that information.

With iOS xv'due south Live Text, your camera can now capture and copy text in images, allowing you to paste the text into documents, letters and emails. You can even expect up web addresses and punch phone numbers that announced in your photos. Meanwhile, Visual Look Up is a nifty way to acquire more about the world around you, as you tin can swipe up from your photograph to expect up data on landmarks, paintings, books, flowers and animals.

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If this sounds familiar, information technology's because Google has offered similar features through Google Lens, which is built into its own Photos app and has rolled out to many Android phones. Apple tree is never shy most adding features that rival companies have gotten to first, particularly if it can present those features in (what it thinks) is a ameliorate way.

We'll have to wait until the full version of iOS fifteen comes out in the autumn to see whether Apple succeeded. But using the public beta of iOS 15, we can see just how far along Live Text and Visual Look Upwards are, particularly when compared to what's available on Android phones through Google. First, though, allow'south take a closer look at what Live Text and Visual Look Upwardly bring to the iPhone in the iOS 15 update.

iOS 15 Live Text: What y'all can do and how it works

Before y'all go started with either Alive Text or Visual Wait Up, y'all'll need to make sure you take a compatible phone — and in this example being able to run iOS 15 isn't enough. Because both of these features rely so heavily on neural processing, you'll need a device powered by at least an A12 Bionic chip, which ways the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, or iPhone XS Max, plus whatsoever phone that came out later on that 2018 trio.

Live Text is capable of recognizing all kinds of text, whether it'southward printed text in a photo, handwriting on a piece of newspaper or scribbles on a whiteboard. The feature doesn't only piece of work in Photos, but likewise in screenshots, Quick Look and fifty-fifty images you encounter when browsing in Safari. At iOS xv's launch, Alive Text will support seven languages — in addition to English language, information technology will recognize Chinese, Portuguese, French, Italian, Spanish and German.

The Photographic camera app in iOS 15 offers a preview of what Alive Text is capturing; only tap the text icon in the lower correct corner of the viewfinder. From there, you can select text to copy, translate, look or share with other people. As useful equally that is, I call up the almost practical employ volition be selecting text from photos already in your photo library.

The feature captures more just text. You tin also collect phone numbers, and a long press of the phone number in a photo brings up a carte du jour that lets you telephone call, text or FaceTime with the number; yous can too add together that number to your Contacts app with a tap. (The feature works in the Camera app'due south live preview, besides — just tap the text push button in the lower corner, then long printing on the number.) A similar thing happens when you long press on a web address(you have the option of opening a link in your mobile browser) or a concrete address (you can get directions in Maps).

iOS 15 Visual Look Upward: What you tin can practise and how it works

Visual Look Up is a way to get more data on any information technology is you're taking pictures of. The feature comes in handy looking up background info on all the sights and points of interest y'all've visited on past vacations, but information technology's also helpful for finding out more than about books, plants and other objects.

Get to the Photos app in iOS xv and select a photo. Normally, y'all'll demand to swipe up, which will reveal details near the epitome such as where you took it, on what device and so forth. But if Visual Look Upward has something to add, an icon will appear on the photo itself. Tap that, and you lot'll see a collection of Siri links and like images from the Web that tin can tell you more near what you're looking at.

iOS 15 visual look up — (Image credit: Tom'due south Guide)

The icon y'all tap changes based on what you're researching with Visual Look Up. A painting will produce an art-like icon, while a foliage indicates that Visual Look Upward can share data on plants.

You don't need to have taken the photos recently or even past an iPhone for Visual Look Up to recognize them. An paradigm of me taken with a Canon PowerShot S200 standing in forepart of London'due south Tower Bridge 12 years ago was recognized. But Visual Look Upwards can be kind of hit-and-miss at this point as Apple fleshes out the feature for iOS fifteen's final release. Sometimes, you'll get info; sometimes, you won't.

iOS 15 Alive Text and Visual Look Upwards vs. Google Lens: How they compare

To observe out how Apple tree's initial efforts compare to what Android users enjoy right now, I took a walk around San Francisco, armed with an iPhone xi Pro Max running the iOS 15 beta and a Google Pixel 4a 5G running Android 11. I snapped the photos, headed domicile and did my comparisons there rather than live in the field. Here's what we plant.

Text capture: Earlier stopping for lunch at one of my favorite eateries, I took a photo of the eating place's exterior. I had to zoom in on the iPhone'due south photo to brand sure I was capturing the intended text, simply Live Text successfully copied the discussion Cheeseburger, even though that appears on a slant in the sign. (Information technology added a superfluous parenthesis, but what tin you do?) Live Text also grabbed the handwritten text promising Baileys & Irish Java Hot Toddy, though it stumbled translating that ampersand.

Google Lens successfully recognized the ampersand in the handwritten sign and also was able to capture the cheeseburger text. However, I institute the text selection controls for this particular image to be less precise. The handwritten sign also copied the text from the Giants logo while I also had to copy the unabridged text of the Cheeseburger sign. In this examination at least, Live Text holds its ain against Google Lens.

Google Lens copying text — What Google Lens captured (left) and what Google Lens copied (right) (Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Telephone numbers: To examination out the ability to call phone numbers I had captured with my telephone's camera, I snapped a shot of a parking lot sign. I don't discover Live Text's long-printing on the number to be a particularly intuitive feature, but the pop-up menu appeared without a problem. Google Lens was a piffling bit more than fussy. I had to carefully select the phone number text, area code included — only then did a call option appear in the menu. I retrieve Apple may have come up up with a more than elegant solution than Google hither.

iOS 15 live text vs Google Lens — Live Text (left) vs. Google Lens (right) recognizing phone numbers (Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Handwriting: Nosotros've already seen Live Text and Google Lens prove their stuff with written text on the Cherry-red'due south Java Hut signage, merely what about actual handwriting? Knowing you tin hands copy your writing into notes can be a existent time-saver when it comes to transcribing notes from lectures, meetings or brainstorming sections.

I would draw my ain handwriting way as "hastily scrawled bribe note" so capturing it is quite a test for both Live Text and Google Lens. It's a task that Live Text simply isn't up to. First, as y'all can meet from the screenshot, it merely captured every other line from my notes on potential iPhone 11 stories from 2019. The text I was able to paste into Notes didn't include one actual word of what I had written down — somehow "Features to Enable/Disable" became "Fatboris ta Enalla/Dinlille 7." Back to the cartoon lath with this feature, I think.

iOS 15 live text handwriting recognition — What Alive Text captured (left) and what it transcribed (right) (Prototype credit: Tom'south Guide)

Google Lens fares better here, though only just. Information technology captures well-nigh, but not all of the handwritten text (and some of the text from the books in the groundwork). The Pasted notes resemble actual man language, with some translation errors. ("Disable" becomes "Disalle.") Information technology'south not perfect, but it's much farther along than what Apple has to offering.

Google lens handwriting recognition — What Google Lens captured (left) and what it transcribed (right) (Paradigm credit: Tom's Guide)

URLs: We could examination the ability of Alive Text and Google Lens to look up web addresses or physical ones, and I decided to go for the former. Long-pressing on the URL in Photos gave me the pick of opening a link in Safari; I could too tap a Live Text push button on the prototype and tap the URL to automatically spring to Safari. Similarly, Google Lens on the Pixel 4a recognized the text and presented me with a button that took me to the right URL in Chrome. This characteristic works but as well on both phones.

Live Text vs. Google Lens url recongition — Live Text (left) vs. Google Lens (right) recognizing spider web addresses (Prototype credit: Tom's Guide)

Picture show Poster: Turning to Visual Look Up, it may be able to recognize books — it successfully identified David Itzkoff's Robin Williams biography, fifty-fifty linking to reviews — but movie posters seem to flummox it. A shot of the Black Widow poster outside my local cineplex yielded no boosted information on the iPhone. Fifty-fifty though this isn't the all-time of photos, Google Lens on the Pixel 4a still yielded links to reviews and similar images.

iOS 15 Visual Look Up vs. Google Lens — iOS 15 Visual Expect Up (left) vs. Google Lens (right) (Image credit: Tom'southward Guide)

Buildings: I only saw the Ferry Building from a distance in my walk around San Francisco, simply I thought information technology would be a expert test every bit to how far Visual Look Upwards's vision can accomplish. The respond is non as far equally that, manifestly, as I didn't get whatever information on this fairly recognizable San Francisco fixture. Google Lens had no such trouble, bad angle and all.

Landmark: At least Visual Look Up can recognize landmarks from a distance. Even from the shoreline, iOS 15's new characteristic could pull up information on the Bay Bridge, even offering a Siri Knowledge summary of the bridge's specs. Google Lens results focused more on images, though there was a search link that took me to Google results.

Statue: I regret to inform you that news of Willie Mays' accomplishments have not nevertheless reached Visual Wait Upwardly. iOS 15'due south feature produced similar web images — a serial of unrelated statues — just nothing else. In improver to a Google search link, the similar images produced by Google Lens at least featured other baseball greats... including statues of other Giants around the same location as the Willie Mays statue.

Artwork: Visual Await Up may not know baseball game, but it certainly understands art. A picture of Rosseau'due south L'Enfant a la Poupee brought up Siri Knowledge links not but to the artwork merely the creative person too. Google Lens offered its usual assortment of similar images and the ubiquitous search link. Apple's results were more enlightening.

Plant Life: I got mixed results when I gear up Visual Look Upward loose in my garden. The iOS 15 characteristic correctly identified the Mexican bush sage in my backyard, just it seems to think that the apple tree I take is growing plums. Google Lens correctly identified both plants and even took a stab at trying to figure out what kind of apples are growing on my tree.

iOS 15 Alive Text and Visual Look Up vs. Google Lens: Early verdict

iOS 15 may exist in beta, but Live Text compares favorably to Google Lens in just well-nigh everything but transcribing handwritten text. That's something Apple can probably fine-tune between now and when the final version of iOS 15 ships, though Google has had a caput-first here and it still doesn't get everything completely authentic.

The gap between Visual Look Upwardly and Google Lens is a bit wider, every bit Visual Look Upwardly's results tin can be hit or miss. When it does have info, though, it's right there in the results field instead of sending yous to a search engine for boosted information.

In other words, Live Text and Visual Expect Up are notwithstanding very much betas. But yous can't help but exist impressed with Apple'southward initial work.

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Philip Michaels is a senior editor at Tom's Guide. He has stiff opinions about Apple, the Oakland Athletics and old movies. Follow him at @PhilipMichaels.