Apple Adds Pet Detector API to Vision Framework in iOS 13

Apple has added an API that detects cats and dogs to its Vision software framework in iOS 13.

Image: Apple

Apple has included a new feature into iOS 13 that will enable iPhones to analyze images of cats and dogs and properly identify them. The feature, first spotted by CNBC, is called VNAnimalDetector, and it works on any image involving either of kind of our furry friends.

Apple’s native Photos app has long been able to use computer vision to detect dogs and cats in images. The change in iOS 13 is the ability for third-party developers to use Apple’s Vision framework in their own apps. In other words, a third-party developer will be able to make their camera app as good at detecting your furry friends as Apple‘s native apps.

The software is part of Apple’s Vision software framework, which provides image recognition tools to iOS developers. Other Vision framework features include the ability to identify whether two images are similar, additional facial recognition abilities, and the ability to identify other objects in a photograph, according to the report.



Apple’s goal seems to be to assist developers in creating software that will help all of us sort through the huge collections of images we’re all generating. Just as one example, Vision makes it a snap for an application to tell whether a picture includes a cat and bowl so an app could easily enable someone find a specific picture they took two years ago.

More information is available in the “Understanding Images in Vision Framework” presentation from WWDC 2019.

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