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Images made by Apple\u2019s AI now have an invisible mark. With iOS 27.2, the iPhone tags everything created in Image Playground with SynthID, a watermark developed by Google. Apple announced this change in June with the new Image Playground, and now it has arrived. So, what gets marked, and how can you check it?<\/span><\/p>\n Newly generated images always get the watermark. For edited photos, it depends on how much the AI changes them. MacRumors tested this in the Photos app: images changed with Extend and Reframe had SynthID, while with Clean Up, it depended on the size of the edit. Small retouches were unmarked, but bigger changes got the watermark. That makes sense, since removing a bit of lint from a sweater does not turn a photo into an AI image.<\/span><\/p>\n SynthID is not stored in the metadata, which can be lost when you share or screenshot an image. Instead, it is hidden in the pixels themselves. Google says the watermark does not affect image quality and will survive cropping, filters, and compression.<\/span><\/p>\n You cannot check for the watermark on the iPhone itself because there is no built-in way to detect it. To do that, you need Google\u2019s SynthID Detector, which became available to everyone in early October.<\/span><\/p>\n The most notable thing is that Apple is using a competitor\u2019s technology instead of making its own. This is a practical choice, since a watermark works best when many companies use the same system and it can be checked in one place. With Apple joining in, SynthID is much closer to becoming a real industry standard, even though it still only shows what has been marked, not what was made with other tools.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n