The latest version of Photos on iPhone and iPad has become significantly more capable in the areas of photo information and search. You can now add captions, adjust timestamps, add or change locations, and review face recognition.
In search, you can see various categories discovered by Photos’ on-device intelligence and indexing.
Get Info
On the Mac, Photos has always had an info panel that you can toggle by clicking the button on the toolbar or by pressing Command+I. This panel recently came to iPhone and iPad as well.
On either device running iOS 15 or later, while viewing an individual photo, tap the on the toolbar or swipe up on the photo. On iPhone, this reveals metadata below the photo.
On iPad, an info panel appears in the top right of the photo. You can drag this panel to any corner. You can also resize it to show one, two, or three of the data sections: caption, date & time and camera info, and location.
In addition, recognized faces (and identified people) will appear in a row in the bottom left corner of the photo. You can tap one to show photos of the person, review confirmed photos, and more.
To dismiss the info panel, swipe down on the photo or again tap the .
Add a Caption
As on the Mac, you can now add captions to photos on mobile devices. Captions are different from Titles, though. Caption text can be on multiple lines, whereas Titles are single-line snippets.
There remains no way to see or modify photo Titles on iPhone/iPad, except that you can use them in search queries. Good luck knowing what a photo is called when looking for it on your device.
Adjust Date/Time & Location
Also new to iPhone and iPad is the ability to set the date, time, and location associated with a photo. In the Info panel, tap Adjust next to any of these data points. If no location exists, tap Add a location to set one, as I did for the photo above.
Smart Search
Our Apple devices do a lot of processing of photos in the background. They also intelligently recognize myriad objects, scenes, and experiences. When you search, try typing something random like “cat,” “spring,” or “cycling” and see what pops up.
Photos will likely offer a number of suggested searches based on the info in your library. Once you choose one, it will show further filter options associated with people, locations, dates, and more.
Show Categories & More
Additionally, below the search field, you’ll find a number of other sections that might help guide your inquiry. For example, check out Categories for a number of popular things you might find in your photos. I found an Art category with pictures containing art pieces on the wall, for example.
Apple continues adding handy features to the mobile versions of Photos, making the app more similar to its Mac counterpart. What other capabilities have you discovered?
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