No More Pawing Through Photos: The Revolutionary ‘People & Pets’ Feature in iOS 17"
4 min readNov 30, 2023
The latest updates in iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma bring a delightful enhancement for pet lovers: the “People & Pets” feature in the Photos app. This advanced functionality transforms how we interact with our digital memories, offering a seamless and intuitive way to organize and cherish photos of our beloved pets.
Understanding the Technology
Sophistic image recognition technology lies at the heart of the “People & Pets” feature. This system, powered by machine learning, scans your photo library, identifying and categorizing images of pets.
It’s a smart extension of the existing facial recognition technology, now adept at distinguishing animals from humans and objects.
The Automatic Sorting Process
- Indexing the Library: Initially, the device indexes every photo and video in your library, analyzing content to understand what’s depicted.
- Pet Detection: Post-indexing, the algorithm identifies and segregates images containing pets.
- Dynamic Album Creation: These identified images are then automatically placed in a dedicated “People & Pets” album.
