Patent: Search and Tag Your iPhone Photos via Siri

Apple has patented a system which would allow for voice-based tagging and retrieval of photographs stored on iOS devices, according to a patent filing published today.

The tagging would be done by a user using his or her voice. For example, after a clicking a photo, the user could say “This is me at the beach,” and the photo would be tagged accordingly. 

Moreover, because the natural-language processing is capable of inferring additional information, the tags may include additional information that the user did not explicitly say (such as the name of the person to which "me" refers), and which creates a more complete and useful tag. 

Once a photograph is tagged using the disclosed tagging techniques, other photographs that are similar may be automatically tagged with the same or similar information, thus obviating the need to tag every similar photograph individually. And when a user wishes to search among his photographs, he may simply speak a request: "show me photos of me at the beach."

Apple first began improving its photo organizational systems this year with iOS 7, with a revamped Photos application, with information on when and where photos were taken. Images within the app can be organized into "Moments" using this information, which already provides a basis for the addition of photo searches to Siri in the future.

Although we don’t know if or when we will see a feature like this shipping as part of Siri’s core capabilities, it’s certainly a good idea – anything that provides an easy way to keep some control over the massive amount of photos being taken every day would be welcomed.

Source: [USPTO via Apple Insider]