Currently available in the iOS 18.1 developer beta, Apple’s Clean Up feature is an Apple Intelligence tool that lets you remove unwanted objects from your photos.
The key words here are “Developer Beta.” Clean Up is still in testing, so never download an iOS beta without backing up your iPhone. It’s a rough copy that gives some users an early look at iOS 18 features before the official release later this year.
With that in mind, I wanted to test Apple’s new cleanup utility and compare it to other tools like Google Magic Eraser and Samsung Galaxy AI. For this showdown, I’ll be using an iPhone 15 Pro Max (Cleanup), a Google Pixel 9 Pro XL (Magic Eraser), and a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (Galaxy AI).
iOS 18.1 adds new Apple Intelligence “Clean Up” tool: 3 things it can do to your photos
Apple Clean Up vs. Magic Eraser vs. Galaxy AI: Test Photos
I decided to select the following three pictures for the test: Each picture has a specific difficulty level: easy, medium, and difficult.
easy
This first photo, taken in Grenada, features a couple walking on the beach and, sorry about that (I’m sure they’re nice people), I need to remove them from the photo.
Grenada beaches
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
The background pattern is consistent, with minimal overlaps and shadows, which should make it a piece of cake for our AI-powered object removal tool, plus the lighting is excellent.
Medium
The red car in this photo is scheduled to be scrapped.
Red car parked in a parking lot
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
Unfortunately, our AI tools have a nasty little shadow that we have to deal with.
difficult
And finally, the eagle pictured here at the Vanderbilt Museum on Long Island is up for removal.
Vanderbilt Museum Room
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
With the eagle in a glass enclosure blocking out most of the image, the AI has to work hard to fill in the blanks.
Apple Cleanup
Starting with a couple walking along the shore, I fired up the cleanup tool in the Photos app on my iPhone 15 Pro Max.
To my surprise, Clean Up selected and highlighted the couple automatically, meaning I didn’t even have to “tell” the tool which parts of the image I wanted to remove.
Apple Intelligence Cleanup Tool
Credit: Kimberly G
I tapped on the highlighted couple and the woman disappeared. A second tap and the man disappeared. And then, poof!, they were gone.
left:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
right:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
Not a single trace is left behind. Apple Intelligence is amazing.
Now let’s test the car photo, where again some removal options are preselected, including red cars.
This is a little difficult.
Mashable Lightspeed
left:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
right:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
If you look closely, you’ll see that Apple Intelligence leaves a subtle red tint in the shadows.
Finally, let’s see how iOS 18 Cleanup Tool handles removing Eagle.
In this photo, Apple didn’t pre-select anything, I just had to use my finger to draw a circle around the eagle: Here’s the final image after using the Clean Up tool.
left:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
right:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
This photo is also particularly challenging because the eagle is blocking a large portion of the image. As you can see, this task required Apple Intelligence to fill in so many blank spaces that it was difficult to conceptualize how to replace them.
Google’s Magic Eraser
Now let’s look at how Google handles object deletion.
Let’s erase that couple. Tapping in a circle on my Google Pixel 9 Pro XL was harder than the Clean Up tool; I had to tap and circle multiple times to make sure the highlighted area was the one I wanted to erase. But it worked great for removing the lovebirds from the beach.
left:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
right:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
As a bonus, Magic Eraser gives you four options to choose from, so if you don’t like the initial results, there are three other versions just for you.
I then used a Magic Eraser to remove the car.
left:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
right:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
It looks like Google Tools added a sinkhole to replace the red car. I don’t like this result.
Finally, selecting and deleting the eagle on my Google Pixel 9 Pro XL was a real pain: It didn’t recognize the glass circle around the bird, and when it finally did, the highlight field strangely ignored part of the bird, forcing me to go back and tap that part to make sure it was deleted.
Magic Eraser Tool for Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Smartphone
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
But when the Magic Eraser worked, I was truly impressed.
left:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
right:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
As you can see, although the occluded areas are a bit distorted and discolored, Google’s AI does a good job of interpreting what’s behind the eagle.
Samsung Galaxy AI
Like Apple and Google, Samsung’s Galaxy AI did an impressive job removing the faces of an annoying couple walking along a beach in Grenada (selecting the unwanted objects was a simple task, thanks to the S Pen that comes with the Galaxy S24 Ultra).
left:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
right:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
Interestingly, Samsung Galaxy AI added a watermark to the bottom left of the image to let others know that it was an AI-generated image (I haven’t seen such a prominent watermark label on other AI-generated images).
In the car photo, Galaxy AI replaced the red car with something that looks like a wooden box or even a chunk of hay.
left:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
right:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
Perhaps this box contains the last vestiges of Galaxy AI logic. Who knows. I’m left baffled and perplexed by this box.
Luckily, Samsung managed to handle this challenging image of a room inside the Vanderbilt Museum of Art.
left:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
right:
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
The lighting is a little off, the door doesn’t seem to open, and a lamp leg is missing, but considering the complexity of the image, it’s not a bad effort from Galaxy AI.
Apple Clean Up vs. Magic Eraser vs. Galaxy AI: Winner
Unsurprisingly, all three AI tools handled the simple image well. Interestingly, all of the AI-generated results were of significantly lower quality.
The winner of this object removal showdown is Google. I don’t like that Google can’t intelligently guess which object you’re trying to remove, but it handled both simple and complex photos well. It failed on the car photo, but Google’s ability to handle difficult images made it the winner.
Coming in second is Apple, which did well on the first two images but struggled with more complex ones like removing the eagle. (Again, iOS 18 Clean Up is currently in beta.)
Samsung’s Galaxy AI came in last, lifting hay bales when I didn’t ask for them to, but it did fine on my beach photos and shots of the Vanderbilt Museum.
Updated: September 3, 2024, 1:36 PM EDT This piece has been updated to reflect that the glass-enclosed bird in the image is an eagle, not an owl.
