Google Photos AI image-editing tools expands to iPhone on May 15

Google is going to provide all users of Google Photos access to its AI-powered editing tools on the iPhone, and without requiring a subscription for most users.

Google's smartphones like the Pixel have benefited from intelligent AI-based features that can dramatically change a user's photographs. Now, Google is opening up the tools to more people, including iPhone users.

In a Wednesday announcement, Google said it will be making a number of its AI-powered image editing features available to all users of Google Photos.

Google is also making the tools available on more devices than just its Pixel smartphones. While Google's Pixel tablets are mentioned directly, the compatibility list does include iPhones.

To use the features, users must be on devices with 3GB of memory or higher and run iOS 15 or later. Alternately, they can also use an Android smartphone running Android 8.0 or later, or a Chromebook Plus with ChromeOS 118 or later.

The tools will start to roll out to users on other devices starting on May 15. The process that will apparently take a few weeks to complete.

Almost subscription-free

The features iPhone users will be able to use include Photo Unblur to improve blurry shots, and Portrait Light to adjust the light of users in portraits. The Magic Eraser is also available to remove distracting elements from photographs.

While Google says most of the tools will be available without a subscription, there is one tool that will be affected by it.

Magic Editor, a generative AI tool, lets users perform complex edits to images, such as repositioning subjects or making significant background edits. Again, this was a tool intended for Pixel devices, but it's also headed to iOS for devices with at least 4GB of memory.

However, Google Photos users will only get ten saves per month from Magic Editor without paying anything. Subscribers of the Premium Google One plan with 2TB of storage or above do not have the ten-save limitation.

The announcement occurs at a time when Apple is exploring the possibility of offering more generative AI tools to users. While Apple has worked on its own tools, Google has allegedly considered offering premium generative AI features to iPhone users, for a fee.