In fact, he also didn’t think it was a QR but a block of text. A screenshot taken by a user of this tower-like building in Jenga enabled iPhone camera detection. And since the building has such a particular shape, the user interpreted it as a QR code.
The strange building of 56 Leonard Street in New York
In New York, there is a strange building at 56 Leonard Street. Located in the Tribeca neighborhood
my iPhone thought this building was a QR code pic.twitter.com/Bm2oeGcPPY
—Sam Sheffer (@samsheffer) February 7, 2022
Sam Sheffer took this screenshot while his iPhone was focused on the Jenga building. You can see how the iPhone detects it as a specific object, something that happens with people or pets. This was the first warning signal f or this particular building.
Sheffer confuses this detection with the functionality that reads iPhone QR codes. If the iPhone had actually detected a QR code, the URL associated with it would have appeared below and in yellow. What does not happen here.
What actually happened was that iOS 15’s Text or Live Text detection was turned on. A function that we can easily deactivate and that it is used to copy texts that we find with the camera. A kind of OCR tool already integrated into the system which is very comfortable. Its accuracy is so good that even students use it to copy notes in class and from a distance.
We see that this function is active because you see the text icon in the lower right corner of the camera. What we don’t know is what text would have been copied if this function had been pressed.