Apple’s AI journey has had a rocky start so far. With the late rollout of Apple Intelligence features, the company’s AI efforts were crushed by Google’s latest AI features in the Pixel 9 series. However, Apple is trying to catch up and has brought another Apple Intelligence feature in the latest beta: Clean Up. This feature is similar to Google’s Magic Eraser and Samsung’s Object Eraser. I tried out the new Clean Up tool and here’s how it works.
Note: The Cleanup tool is only available in iOS 18.1 beta 3, iPadOS 18.1 beta, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 beta 3 at this time.
Once you update your iPhone to iOS 18.1 beta 3, the Cleanup tool will be available by default in the Photos app. When you start using it for the first time, the tool will be downloaded. Here’s how to use the Cleanup tool on iPhone to remove unwanted objects from photos.
- Open a photo in the Photos app and tap the Edit button. Then select Clean up from the tools at the bottom.
- You will be prompted to tap, circle, or brush an object you want to remove. You can zoom in and out of the photo with the pinch gesture to use the tool properly.
- The selected object will be highlighted with a cool animation, then it will be removed from the photo.
- You can also blur a person’s face by doodling over it.
- To save changes, tap Done or choose Reset to discard changes. There is also a Cancel arrow to discard changes.
- You can also tap the three-dot button at the top right to save a copy.
First of all, Apple Intelligence’s Clean Up tool works entirely on-device, unlike its counterparts from Google and Samsung that offer both cloud-based and on-device options. I tried to compare it with Google’s Magic Eraser and Samsung’s Object Eraser and the results were disappointing. While Clean Up detects objects in focus using depth mapping in all photos, the object segmentation is not up to par.
It works great on simple images where unwanted objects are clearly visible or don’t blend into the background, complex images are where it fails to shine. For example, I tried the Cleanup tool on a photo of a group of people and tried to remove one person from it, but it ruined the surroundings instead.
In comparison, the Magic Eraser and Object Eraser work much better. One of the problems with the Cleanup tool is that the Selection tool is too thick to select objects, especially if you want to select a small object. 
Apple Intelligence Clean Up tool in action (before (left) and after (right)) 
Samsung Object Eraser (Before (L) and After (R)) 
Apple’s information cleanup (before (left) and after (right))
After trying the tool on different images, the results were mostly disappointing and the feature is buggy in its current state. One could argue that this is a beta update and Apple Intelligence itself is currently in beta, so expecting it to work as well as Magic Eraser and Object Eraser wouldn’t be fair.
I really hope Apple will polish this feature to eliminate the associated bugs.
