iOS 26 screenshots could possibly be an intriguing preview of Apple’s delayed Siri rework

When it launched, Apple ‘s Visual Intelligence function allowed you to level your appropriate telephone’s digital camera at issues round you and both carry out a Google Picture Search or ask questions by way of ChatGPT. At WWDC 2025, the corporate confirmed off updates to broaden the usefulness of Visible Intelligence, largely by embedding it into the screenshots system. To cite the company’s press release, “Visible intelligence already helps customers find out about objects and locations round them utilizing their iPhone digital camera, and it now allows customers to do extra, quicker, with the content material on their iPhone display screen.”

This jogged my memory of the “onscreen consciousness” that Apple described as one among Siri’s capabilities when it introduced Apple Intelligence final yr. In that press launch, the corporate mentioned, “With onscreen consciousness, Siri will be capable to perceive and take motion with customers’ content material in additional apps over time.” Although it is not fairly the identical, the up to date screenshot-based Visible Intelligence kind of permits in your iPhone to serve up contextual actions out of your onscreen content material, simply not by way of Siri.

In a means, it is smart. Most individuals are already accustomed to taking a screenshot once they wish to share or save essential data they noticed on an internet site or Instagram publish. Integrating Apple Intelligence actions right here would theoretically put the instruments the place you count on them, relatively than make customers discuss to Siri (or watch for the replace to roll out).

Mainly, in iOS 26 (on devices that support Apple Intelligence), urgent the ability and quantity down buttons to take a screenshot will lead to a brand new web page being pulled up. As a substitute of the thumbnail of your saved picture showing within the backside left, you may see the image take up virtually the entire show, with choices round it for enhancing, sharing or saving the file, in addition to getting Apple Intelligence-based solutions and actions on the backside. Within the backside left and proper corners sit choices for asking ChatGPT and doing a Google Picture Search respectively.

Relying on what’s in your screenshot, Apple Intelligence can recommend numerous actions under your picture. This may be asking the place to purchase a similar-looking merchandise, including an occasion to your calendar or figuring out kinds of vegetation, animals or meals, as an illustration. If there’s rather a lot occurring in your screenshot, you’ll be able to draw on an merchandise to spotlight it (just like how you choose an object to erase in Images) and get data particular to that a part of the picture.

Third-party apps or providers which have enabled App Intents, like Google, Etsy and Pinterest, also can seem right here so you’ll be able to perform actions inside this area too. For instance, when you’ve discovered a bookend you want, taken a screenshot and recognized it, you’ll be able to store for it on Etsy or pin it on Pinterest.

One facet of this replace to Visible Intelligence that provides me pause is that, for folks like me who screenshot mindlessly and do not wish to do something apart from get receipts, this would possibly add a irritating step between capturing a screenshot and saving it to Images. It sounds such as you might be able to flip off this interface and follow the present screenshot system, although.

The examples that Apple gave for Siri’s means to grasp what’s in your display screen felt considerably related. In its press launch from final yr, Apple mentioned “For instance, if a pal texts a consumer their new deal with in Messages, the receiver can say, ‘Add this deal with to his contact card.'”

Like Visible Intelligence in screenshots, this entails scanning the onscreen content material for pertinent data and serving to you place it in a spot (like Contacts or Calendar) the place it is most helpful. Nonetheless, the promise of Siri’s new period was extra about interacting with all components of your telephone, throughout first- and third-party apps alike. So you may ask the assistant to open an article you added to your Studying Listing in Safari or ship images from a specified occasion to a contact.

It is clear Apple has but to ship these developments to Siri, and like Craig Federighi mentioned on the WWDC 2025 keynote, these would possibly only be discussed later this year. Nonetheless, as we await that standing replace, the modifications coming to screenshots could be a preview of issues to come back.

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