A year of criticism, one response
Clean Up was introduced with iOS 18 as the first AI editing tool in Photos, but comparative evaluations — including a Tom's Guide test pitting Apple, Google, and Samsung against each other — showed results inferior to rivals: poorly removed subjects and unconvincing fills. With iOS 27, Apple has updated the underlying model to produce more natural removals, according to Analytics Insight and AppleInsider.
How it fits into the editing ecosystem
Clean Up is no longer the sole AI tool in Photos: iOS 27 also brings Extend (frame expansion), Reframe (perspective shift), and Enhance (overall quality improvement). The four tools cover different use cases — composition, cleanup, perspective, quality — and integrate into the existing workflow without requiring third-party apps.
What remains to be seen
None of the available sources quantify the improvement in Clean Up with systematic testing on the beta. Reviewers will need to compare results on real-world cases — complex scenes, repeating backgrounds, subjects with irregular edges — before determining whether Apple has genuinely closed the gap with Google Photos Magic Eraser or Samsung's Object Eraser.