Genmoji, Image Playground to get major upgrade in iOS 27
What's the story
Apple is gearing up to give a major visual upgrade to its image generation models, Genmoji and Image Playground, in the upcoming iOS 27 update. The information comes from Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter. He said that the tech giant's own models for these platforms have been improved significantly, resulting in a major boost in quality this year.
Expansion strategy
Support for 3rd-party AI models also on the cards
Along with improving its own models, Apple also plans to support third-party AI models for image creation in the revamped Image Playground app. This will be a big step for the company as it currently only supports ChatGPT for image generation. The addition of other competitors' models, including Google's Nano Banana, is likely on the cards.
Launch review
Initial performance of Genmoji and Image Playground
When Genmoji and Image Playground were first introduced in iOS 18.2, their image fidelity left much to be desired. While Genmoji was passable, Image Playground's performance was downright disappointing when compared to other image generation tools. However, these platforms are powered by on-device models, which could explain their initial subpar performance, but doesn't fully justify it.