
Apple’s Photos app on iOS 17 lets you utilize the key phrase search to seek out videos and dwell photographs with particular sounds, akin to laughing, crying and so forth.
If you’ve iOS 17 operating on your iPhone, you possibly can check this function by typing sound-related key phrases in the search area, like “laughter,” “blabber,” “applause,” and so on.
If Apple’s sound recognition identifies sounds in videos and dwell photographs that match your key phrase, it’ll floor them in search outcomes.
Apple hasn’t talked about this hidden little gem, and it’s not talked about in the iOS 17 press release, developer documentation or advertising and marketing supplies.
Searching videos for particular sounds in them is out there on the iPhone, iPad and Mac with iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma or later.
Table of Contents
iOS 17’s Photos lets you search for sounds in videos
In my temporary check, I used just a few search phrases describing among the sounds contained in the videos that I’ve captured with my iPhone over time.
Finding “speech” in videos
I first entered “speech” as I’ve taken many videos at varied expertise conferences over time. Just like that, Photos surfaced these clips together with a video of a pair singing on the seaside and interacting with the viewers between songs.
I used to be briefly confused seeing a 2010 video from a hockey match earlier than realizing my iPhone picked up the announcer’s voice firstly of the sport. It additionally discovered a video of my late cat in which I talked to him and some different related videos.
Finding “applause” in videos
Next, I typed “applause” and was greeted with extra videos of the seaside singers and the hockey match. I may simply see why—we applauded the couple for their magical musical efficiency. As for the hockey match, there was a musical efficiency throughout the halftime break, adopted by roaring applause.
The solely mistake the algorithm made was surfacing a video exhibiting me enjoyable my legs on the seashores. There’s no applauding in that clip, however I may simply think about my iPhone mistaking the sound of splashing waves for applause.
Finding “laughter” in videos
For my last check, I picked the phrase “laughter” as a result of I’m a cheerful one who laughs rather a lot in many videos. Lo and behold, the entire outcomes that this search time period has produced include laughter in some unspecified time in the future. Too unhealthy this cool function has flown below the radar. It positively works significantly better than you’ll think about.
Apple’s evolving sound recognition
Apple first applied sound recognition on the iPhone and iPad as an accessibility function in iOS 14, however has since expanded to different locations in the system.
It can notify you when it picks up sounds akin to doorbell ringing, child crying, canine barking, fireplace alarm, siren and comparable that would point out hazard or the necessity to act.
For additional data, try our step-by-step tutorial exhibiting you learn how to activate and use sound recognition on an iPhone and iPad.
Other new options in iOS 17’s Photos app
The object recognition function in iOS 17’s Photos app can now acknowledge pets like cats and canine in the People album. You may also pinch a photograph to shortly crop it.

iOS 17 additionally lets you handle the photographs and videos in your recollections and set a customized album to show in the Photos widget on your Lock or Home Screen.
iOS 17 additionally consists of image-related enhancements all through the system. For instance, you possibly can carry a topic from a picture to create a dwell sticker, which could be enjoyable. And the Visual Look Up function now works on videos, too.
Apple has developed Visual Look Up to the purpose the place it may possibly determine warning lights and symbols on automotive dashboards, in addition to washing symbols on clothes tags. It may even discover recipes for comparable dishes from a photograph.