Why take notes when you can just take photos?

A viral TikTok showing a student using iOS 15’s Live Text to copy, and digitize, a classmate’s notes has renewed interest in the mostly overlooked feature. Live Text allows iPhone users with an iPhone XS or newer (and the latest operating system) to take a photo of text, highlight that text, and then copy and paste it.

While officially unveiled by Apple in June of this year, Live Text was only recently made available as part of iOS 15.

At least one French student clearly wasted no time in taking advantage of it.

Hard at work.

Credit: screenshot: tiktok

Zoom in.

Credit: SCREENSHOT: TIKTOK

The video went viral on Twitter on Thursday, racking up thousands of retweets, after France-based writer Juan Buis tweeted it.

“students are starting to steal each other’s notes with iOS 15 and it’s… kind of genius,” he wrote.

And while we can’t independently verify that the video hasn’t been altered in any way by the original poster, the depiction of Live Text’s capabilities is accurate (we tested it out on a photo of a computer screen taken from a distance and it worked).

Copy, paste.
Credit: screenshot: twitter

Indeed, while we’d recommend asking permission from another student before copying their notes, this use of Live Text appears to fit the definition of “work smart, not hard.”

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With this video going viral, we may soon find out if the student actually taking the notes agrees.