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I photograph solved crossword puzzles at nyxcrossword.com. I use the photo as answers to the same blank puzzle I am trying to solve. I use an iPhone 12 recently upgraded to iOS 15.1.1

Since the upgrade I am getting an icon in the lower right corner. I did a reverse image search of the icon at images.google.com and tineye.com and both said "zero matches".

Does anyone recognize the icon and know how to get rid of it?

image

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    Note, you may find it easier to save the images of the crossword puzzles directly rather than taking pictures of them with your phone. If you visit the website on your phone for example, hold down on any of the crossword images and tap "Add to Photos".
    – shim
    Dec 15, 2021 at 4:50

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The icon offers an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) feature to extract the actual text from the image as individual characters you can copy/paste etc. Apple calls this feature "Live Text" and it was introduced with iOS 15 for supported devices.

The icon appears on the phone when you have it directed at something which the feature recognizes as text. Just ignore it and take the picture if you don't want to use it.

If you do want to use it, clicking on the icon in the camera app brings up a familiar "Copy" / "Select All" / "Look Up" clipboard management toolbar. You can interactively swipe some regions of the image to select the text in them for copying or other manipulation.

Selection in progress

In the photo album viewer, the icon gets superimposed over images which contain text so that you can extract it "non-live" after the fact. The icon is still not actually part of the picture, as you can easily verify by zooming etc.

(I literally discovered this by directing my phone camera at the picture you posted. I wasn't aware of this feature until now.)

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    The announcement also introduces a feature where your phone can identify things you point the camera at, but ironically, this icon doesn't seem to be one of the things it can identify.
    – tripleee
    Dec 14, 2021 at 10:46
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    Just for clarification for anyone not seeing the icon in such situations, "Live Text is currently supported in English, Chinese, French, Italian, German, Portuguese and Spanish. You need an iPhone XS, iPhone XR or later with iOS 15 to use Live Text."
    – jcaron
    Dec 14, 2021 at 15:22
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    So you're saying it's not actually in the JPEG/PNG picture... it's just some user-interface chrome being added by the app OP is using to view the picture?
    – Harper - Reinstate Ukraine
    Dec 15, 2021 at 1:59
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    @Harper-ReinstateMonica Yup. Image-reading text translate apps offers a similar feature of OCR, and generally you can get barcode and QR code scans being done live too. It's not saved with the image, but if you take a screenshot, you'll obviously have it in the screenshot. (Sometimes image viewers have their own OCR detection too, muddying the waters a bit.)
    – Phi
    Dec 15, 2021 at 3:16
  • @jcaron: Which Chinese? Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, Hokkien, Hakka, Hainanese... ?
    – Vikki
    Dec 15, 2021 at 19:40
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As the other answer mentioned, the icon is for Live Text. You can't turn it for just one picture (or even just one app) but there is a system-wide setting that disables it completely.

Open the Settings app and tap General, then Language & Region, then find the switch for Live Text and turn it off.

Language & Region control panel

Go back to your photo and the icon should be gone.

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