Don’t panic as soon as you get into your car and your dashboard cycles all kinds of lights into your field of vision. Thanks to iPhone, you know very quickly what’s going on.
Although Apple rolled out iOS 17.1.1 earlier this week, there are still iOS 17 features we’re discovering. So the iPhone has a handy way for you to check what’s wrong with your car.
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Your iPhone as your car’s mechanic
The simplest solution to see what’s going on is to look in your car’s manual. Still, we can quite imagine that you don’t always have it with you. Since iOS 17, your iPhone is your best companion. This one has the Visual Lookup feature to help you out. I’ll tell you how it works.
There is one drawback, though: the feature only works in the English, German or French versions of iOS. So you will have to change the language of your phone first. You do this through General -> Language and region. Then add English as a language and slide it all the way to the top.
What exactly do those symbols on your dashboard mean?
Once you have done that, you can take a picture of your car’s dashboard. It is important that the background is dark so that the iPhone can read the dashboard properly as well. So you don’t want the sun to reflect violently.
Next, open the image in the Photo app and press the i you see at the bottom of the screen. If your iPhone has already recognized that it’s a picture of the dashboard, that icon turns into a steering wheel.
Once you press that, you get all kinds of information about the photo. In addition to which lens you used, the iPhone also displays the Look Up Auto Symbol option.
Siri gives you all the information you need after that action. It not only shows you what a particular symbol means, but also directs you to a website that can provide even more information about it.
Should a mechanic be needed for the situation, at least you know what you’re talking about thanks to your iPhone.
Also available on your iPhone for other situations
By the way, the feature doesn’t just work for problems with your car. Visual Lookup can also look up information on other topics for you.
For example, you can take a picture of a pet to find out what species it is. It is also possible to take a picture of your food to find ingredients and a recipe. So a handy feature, which we hope to see in the Dutch version of iOS soon.