Quick actions and video text capture are the main features in iOS 16.
One of iOS 15’s coolest new features, Live Text, allows you to copy text from photographs as easily as you would text from a web page, note, or document. With a few new tricks up its sleeve, the feature is back in iOS 16.
With the ability to copy and paste text from photographs into virtually any app that takes text, Live Text has already proven to be quite helpful. (Among others, consider Notes, Safari, and Mail.) Additionally, you could use Live Text to copy phone numbers and contact them, or you could touch on the text you copied to search up addresses in the Maps app.
Apple is expanding the features for Live Text in iOS 16 from photographs to video. It also includes rapid actions that increase the utility of text that has been collected. Additionally, when the complete iOS 16 update is released this autumn, there will be a few other noteworthy improvements.
Even if these modifications aren’t substantial or wide-ranging, they’re enough to elevate iOS 16’s Live Text feature in the eyes of iPhone users. Additionally, iOS 15 was already rather good.
The developer beta of iOS 16 has allowed early testers the chance to learn even more about the new Live Text features that were previewed at last month’s WWDC. If you decide to download the iOS 16 public beta when it becomes available later in July, here is what to expect from Live Text.
iOS 16 Live Text: Which iPhones support i
Because Live Text needs a lot of on-device intelligence to execute its text capture tactics, not every iPhone running iOS 16 will be able to use this feature. The good news is that nothing will change with iOS 16 enabled devices if you had an iPhone that could handle Live Text in iOS 15.
You will therefore require a phone that has an A12 Bionic or later. The iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max introduced the A12 in 2018. Therefore, if you own one of those models or anything more recent (like as the iPhone SE from either 2022 or 2020), you should be good to go.
There aren’t many devices that can run iOS 16 that are outside looking in at Live Text, especially because iOS 16 requires at least an iPhone 8. The original iPhone X lacks the processing power necessary to handle Live Text, in addition to the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.
iOS 16 Live Text: Capture text appearing in video
The primary improvement to Live Text in iOS 16 is a logical expansion of its current functionality. Previously, Live Text could be used to extract text from images; currently, you can do the same with videos.
Of course, there are certain restrictions. In one sense, this is still grabbing text from a static image rather than a moving picture since you’ll need to pause the movie in order to do so, but it’s still a remarkable effort to pull off.
You will be able to copy/paste, translate, and look up any text you have copied from a video, just like you can with Live Text in photographs. As we’ll discuss in a moment, Live Text from videos will also support rapid actions. It is compatible with video in Photos, Safari, and other applications.
iOS 16 Live Text: Quick actions
You can do more with iOS 16 than merely duplicate the text you’ve copied. For some text, new quick action buttons will surface, offering pertinent one-tap actions for the currently selected content.
When you select a section of French text, a button to translate it into English will appear immediately below it. You’ll also see a quick action button offering to convert a price you’ve chosen that is in euros or pounds into dollars.
Other rapid actions include phoning phones, checking up addresses, making calendar events, tracking flights, and writing emails (presumably if Live Text chooses an email address).
iOS 16 Live Text: Heading to Translate
You are not restricted to only translating text found in the Camera app or in your photo roll. The Translate app in iOS 16 now has a camera tab where you may shoot photographs while translating text into a variety of languages.
iOS 16 Live Text: Other changes
Live Text now supports more languages with iOS 16, including Japanese, Korean, and Ukrainian. Apple offered developers a Live Text API for integrating text capture into their own apps during the WWDC iOS 16 preview.