At WWDC Apple announced Spatial Refeaming, one of two new imaging tools for its iOS 27 operating system used on iPhones and iPads.
The other significant AI update was AI generative improvements to the photo editing, but the idea of being able to move the camera after taking the picture.
Rather than just AI reframing that extends the image – such as many of us have become used to in Photoshop – what Apple showed was a feature that allowed the camera to be re-positioned around the subject, with the AI re-shaping the subject using AI, and generating a suitable background generated using AI.
You can see the effect working in this example from Apple. For an example of the extend that AI is involved, look closely at the boy’s legs, and you’ll see that it has clearly created a 3D model and adjusted the image according to the spatial position that the camera would be in.
However, current iPhone users will have experienced a feature a little like this before – I know I have. Above, my wife is holding her phone with one of our wedding pictures as the background. When she chose it iOS 26 automatically added layers of depth unprompted.
The effect is more subtle, but it's effective; the AI correctly picked her and I out from the elements of the background that are further behind (the door) and kept us more or less at the same apparent distance as the flower arch, and the effect is shown whenever you tilt the phone.
So everyone is getting rightly excited about the progression – but I woudlnt' call it 'new'.
Apple also mentioned in passing that AI generation will be used to turn panoramas into Spatial Scenes for the Vision Pro, but presumably, given the product’s relatively low sales this clever bit of AI didn’t warrant a lot of discussion at the WWDC announcement!
iPhone users will likely be a lot more excited by the news that photos will load “up to” 70% faster and AirDrop will be 80% faster, with work on the CPU scheduler that should make even older phones (as far back as the iPhone 11) faster.
Check our guide to the best iPhone for photography and the best camera phones.
