7 Apps to Help You Identify Anything With Your iPhone’s Camera
How often have you passed by something and you didn't know what it was but wanted to learn more about it? Maybe it was an exotic plant, a new electric car, or that gaming chair you didn't know you needed.
Whatever it was, you probably couldn't recognize it. It's not your fault; many people have trouble finding more information about objects they find or see in their daily lives. The issue is so big that there are even subreddits dedicated to helping people discover what something is.
The good news is that we have search engines and artificial intelligence. Now, you can use either of these technologies to figure out what something is in a matter of seconds. Are they perfect? Absolutely not! But they still work more often than not.
Of course, you need the right app for the job, which is why we've gathered some of the best apps to help you recognize any object with the help of your iPhone's camera. Read on for 7 apps to help you identify virtually anything you can point your iPhone at.
Apple's Visual Intelligence
Before looking for third-party apps to help you recognize something, you need to know that if you have an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16, you may already have everything you need, thanks to Apple Intelligence.
Apple introduced a new feature in iOS 18.2 called visual intelligence. This technology helps you use your iPhone's camera to find more information about anything. For instance, you can find the menu of a new restaurant you walked by or the name of a plant you see in the park.
Visual Intelligence uses both Google and ChatGPT to help you discover more information about anything. You can use Google to find a product you want to buy or to find out when a store opens and closes. You can also get more personalized information by asking ChatGPT for more information about what's on your camera.
When it launched, this feature was limited to the iPhone 16 lineup due to its reliance on the Camera Control that's unique to those models. However, when Apple released the iPhone 16e in February without a Camera Control, it made visual intelligence accessible from the Action button. That opened the door for its expansion to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max in iOS 18.4. Visual intelligence can be called up with a long press of the Camera Control on iPhone 16 or iPhone 16 Pro models, or assigned to the Action button or added as a button in the Control Center on any supported iPhone
So long as you have a compatible iPhone, you can use this technology without downloading a third-party app.
Identify Anything With AI
As the name suggests, Identify Anything With AI is a really simple app that will help you, well, identify anything.
All you need to do is open this app and point your camera at an object, and the app will give you a detailed description of it. You'll get data like the object's official name, fun facts about it, and a description of what it is and what is known about it.
You can use this app to identify anything from regular stuff to plants or animals. Of course, there might be times when the app doesn't recognize an object correctly, so maybe take the most obscure responses with a grain of salt.
Still, this app is perfect for the job if you want a quick and easy answer.
Image Recognition And Searcher
This Image Recognition app is a complete app that will help you identify any object with just one photo you take.
The app is pretty simple to use: you point your camera at an object, and then the app will reverse image search it on the most popular search engines like Google or Bing, and we guarantee that you will get an actual answer.
From there, you can edit the image to make it easier to identify or save it in the Photos app to use later.
Besides searching for images, the app can also help you translate pictures if you need to.
Plant App: Plant Identifier
The Plant app won't help you identify all the objects you see in your life, but it's still a helpful app if you love plants.
As you can guess by the name, this app lets you identify any type of plant with your camera. You'll get the exact name of the plant, a brief description of it, and more useful information.
For instance, you'll know if the plant is safe or toxic, the most common diseases that affect it, and even some tips and tricks to help your plant grow.
What's great is that you don't have to rely specifically on AI to learn more about a plant; you can also chat with botanists inside the app to learn more.
If you only want to use Google to find more information about anything, then the Google app is the obvious choice.
The Google app works as a shortcut to Google. You can search for anything using words, images, or your iPhone camera. You can also take pictures of anything, and Google will give you pretty spot-on results of the object, including prices and other clearer images if you want to use them.
Besides search results, you can also get a more personalized response with Google's AI tool. You can use it to get quick and useful bits of information without having to read a full article from the search results.
Amazon Shopping
Amazon is an app that needs no introduction. It's only the world's largest online retailer, and it's filled to the brim with products that you might want to buy.
But what happens when you don't know the name of the product you want to buy? Well, the Amazon app can help you with that, too.
The Amazon app has a built-in scanner that lets you take pictures of any object. After you do that, you'll see a bunch of search results that are just like the product you scanned. Amazon will even show you products with the same color as the photo you took.
ChatGPT
ChatGPT is another powerful app that helps you identify any object you want. However, it comes with a price.
The downside of ChatGPT is that you'll need to be subscribed to share multiple images with the AI system. If you use the free plan, you can only share a couple of images a day.
With that said, if you're subscribed, ChatGPT is a perfect companion for identifying anything. From animals to regular stuff and so much more. For instance, ChatGPT can translate stuff for you and even solve math problems in a matter of seconds.
Of course, it's still far from perfect. In our experience, the ChatGPT app recognized a regular chair as a gaming PC and even started listing the components it could see, like the cooling fan and the battery pack. So take everything it tells you with a grain of salt.
Identify Any Object in Seconds
As you can see, there's no excuse for not knowing more about any product you find interesting. Whether you use Apple's Visual Intelligence or any other alternative on the list, you can find more information about any subject in just a few seconds.
Of course, the apps that use search engines like Google are more reliable than the apps that use AI. On the other hand, AI apps can give you more detailed information about any object. So both types of apps come with their own upsides and downsides.
The best part is that you don't have to choose a single app; you can download multiple apps and use them whenever you like.