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cailianshe news, september 11 (editor: zhou ziyi)apple launched a visual search feature, "visual intelligence", at its press conference on september 9. this feature provides a new paradigm for interacting with software and services and introduces a new model for its search.

apple describes "visual intelligence" as a way to instantly understand everything you see. at the press conference, apple explained that the "visual intelligence" feature can be used to do more things. it is not only a simple way to help users understand things in the camera view, but also a new way to access third-party services, which means that users do not need to launch independent applications.

this feature only requires users to click the new "camera control" button to enable it. at the launch event, through several demonstrations, apple showed how users can click the "camera control" button to get information about restaurants you see when you are out and about, or identify the breed of dogs you see on a walk, or convert an event poster on the wall into a calendar entry with all the details.

apple's senior vice president of software engineering, craig federighi, later mentioned that the feature could also be used to access google search, which could be interpreted as a shift in apple's search partnership with google.

federighi noted, “camera control is also your gateway to third-party tools to leverage their expertise in specific areas very quickly and easily.”

apple and google's relationship is upgraded

currently, apple and google still maintain a partnership in the search field, with google's parent company alphabet paying apple about $20 billion a year to make google the default search engine for its safari browser, but the future of this deal faces uncertainty.

previously, the us department of justice claimed that google paid operating system operators to make its own search engine the default setting for system browsers, which violated us antitrust laws.

the u.s. federal court's ruling early last month also supported the department of justice's claim. this ruling not only affects google, but also apple, because it means that apple will lose $20 billion in revenue. of course, google has also made it clear that it will appeal the result.

and now, with the launch of apple's new "visual intelligence" feature, apple's search partnership with google seems to have been "upgraded."

by tapping the camera controls button, apple showed users how to quickly take a photo or record a video, as well as how to slide your finger in the new camera preview experience to compose the shot and adjust options like zoom, exposure, or depth of field.

this button also provides iphone 16 users with apple’s new “visual intelligence” search function, which is the key to apple’s cooperation with google. iphone 16 series users will be able to access google’s search engine and google’s visual search function by clicking the “camera control” button.

for example, in the demo, a person points an iphone at a bicycle and taps the camera control button, and a window pops up over the camera view for the user to see a list of similar options available for purchase. in addition, a smaller button appears on the screen that says "more results from google," indicating that the user can continue the google search by clicking this button.

a google spokesperson said the company had no information to share about its partnership at this time, but the feature is considered an extension of the two companies’ existing relationship and does not involve google’s gemini ai model.

what’s interesting about the “visual intelligence” feature is that it provides a new paradigm for interacting with software and services, which means that the concept of the app store has become obsolete. with the new artificial intelligence technology, users can ask questions to artificial intelligence on the new interface, perform productivity tasks with the help of artificial intelligence, creatively process images and videos, etc., without having to resort to applications to do so.

apple is currently cleverly positioning itself as a platform for third-party services, including artificial intelligence technology, search services, and possible other providers in the future, to avoid being involved in the fierce competition between ai tools such as chatgpt. at the press conference, apple also demonstrated how to access openai's chatgpt through siri.