TL;DR
Your iPhone automatically recognizes plants, animals, landmarks, and artwork in your photos — no extra app needed. Just tap the info button.
How to do it
- Open a photo in the Photos app on your iPhone.
- Tap the info button (i) at the bottom of the image.
- If something is recognized, you'll see a sparkle icon on the info button — that means Visual Look Up found something.
- Tap it → you'll see Wikipedia entries, websites, and details about the recognized object.
- Done — no Google search, no extra app.
What gets recognized?
- 🌿 Plants & flowers — perfect for hikes or in the garden
- 🐕 Animals & dog breeds — "What breed is that dog?"
- 🏛️ Buildings & landmarks — on city trips
- 🎨 Artwork — snap a photo at the museum
- 📚 Books — photograph a cover, get details
Why this works
Apple uses on-device machine learning combined with the Apple Knowledge Graph. The recognition runs directly on your iPhone — fast and private. Think of it as Apple's built-in Google Lens, seamlessly integrated into the Photos app.
Good to know
- Requirement: iPhone XS or newer (A12 Bionic chip) with iOS 15 or later.
- Recognition works best with good lighting and clear subjects.
- It's not always perfect with rare or poorly lit objects — but often surprisingly accurate.
- You can use Visual Look Up on already saved photos too — not just new ones.
Pro tip
Visual Look Up also works on iPad and Mac (macOS Monterey+) — in the Photos app and even in Safari when you right-click an image.