Apple Readies New iPhones With Pro-Focused Camera, Video Updates (bloomberg.com) 61
Apple's next iPhone lineup will get at least three major new camera and video-recording features, which the company is betting will be key enticements to upgrade from earlier models. From a report: The new handsets will include a video version of the phone's Portrait mode feature, the ability to record video in a higher-quality format called ProRes, and a new filters-like system that improves the look and colors of photos, according to people familiar with the matter.
Beyond the camera enhancements, the new iPhones will get relatively modest upgrades. Last year, Apple revamped the iPhone design, added 5G wireless networking and updated the camera hardware. For this year, the company will retain the same 5.4-inch and 6.1-inch regular sizes and 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch Pro screen dimensions, as well as their designs. The new phones will include a faster A15 chip and a smaller notch, also known as the display cutout, in addition to new screen technology that could enable a faster refresh rate for smoother scrolling.
Beyond the camera enhancements, the new iPhones will get relatively modest upgrades. Last year, Apple revamped the iPhone design, added 5G wireless networking and updated the camera hardware. For this year, the company will retain the same 5.4-inch and 6.1-inch regular sizes and 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch Pro screen dimensions, as well as their designs. The new phones will include a faster A15 chip and a smaller notch, also known as the display cutout, in addition to new screen technology that could enable a faster refresh rate for smoother scrolling.
Who could object (Score:5, Funny)
Apple Readies New iPhones With Pro-Focused Camera, Video, Spyware For Federal Government Updates
Ftfy
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No doubt, the new cameras will work great with the new image scanning *feature*
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Heh. Just a reminder that you guys actively tout home-phoning-phones using a Google-owned operating system.
Re: Who could object (Score:1)
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Imagine the high resolution opposition lists apple could produce for the current political party under a sealed order from a grand jury approved by the FISA court.
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(Grainy B&W tv ad of runner zooming through a dystopia of marching worker drones sitting to watch Big Brother yammer at them. She carries a hammer, but gets caught and tackled to the ground.)
"And you will see why 2022 will be exactly like 1984."
Congrats, Apple. You lived long enough to become the villain, as you defined it.
Standards. (Score:1)
Just what the world needs, another codec [indiefilmsllc.com] and this one requires quicktime.
Re:Standards. (Score:4, Informative)
Sony has a line of "pro camera" phones and they are interesting beasts. They really are pro, you get full control of the camera like a DSLR, shoot in RAW etc.
The results are a bit mixed. You have to ask why anyone would want it, when it's limited by the phone form-factor to having a smaller sensor and limited optics, and if they were serious they would just use a DSLR.
iPhone cameras are decent. They tend to be heavily processed so the results are usually ready to upload directly to Instagram, rather than being accurate or editable. If the auto processing fails you get complete crap. My wife also complains that there is no beauty filter at all, not even a minimal one, because Apple removed it some years ago.
The gold standard is still the Pixel and this year they are switching to a new camera. The Pixel's video quality has always been the weak point, but apparently this year they are bringing all that computational photography magic to it and the results are very good. For stills it really can't be beat.
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Re:Standards. (Score:4, Informative)
There is an Android app that I've run on a Pixel 2 that lets you control aperture/ISO/shutter and shoot in RAW. You can run it on other things too -- I just happen to have a Pixel 2. You don't need one of those Sonys.
The image quality is equivalent in nearly all ways to shooting on a good 12MP fullframe DSLR with a medium-quality 28mm f/11 lens that has a minimum ISO of around 2000 -- in terms of the resolution, depth of field, and number of photons captured per pixel at any given light level.
But of course changing settings on a phone, holding the thing steady, etc., is infinitely frustrating compared to a proper camera. (Except ironically for Sony's mirrorless cameras, which are smaller than a phone for some reason. I have no idea why people would want to attach a 600mm lens to a thing the size of a deck of cards but I saw someone doing it the other day.)
For things where a 28mm f/11 is acceptable and subjects don't move much (meaning you can actually use a phone to focus on what you want), phones are fine. But there are so many affordable real cameras out there. Hint: get a cheap used camera body and spend your budget on lenses that match what you want to do. They matter vastly more than sensors unless you care about super high definition video.
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The appeal of a phone is that you carry it with you everywhere, and can take a random snap whenever you want.
I have a DSLR and several lenses, flash units, filters, reflectors etc. You end up with a relatively heavy bag full of accessories that you don't want to carry around with you unless you're going somewhere with the primary intention of photo shooting.
The stock Samsung camera app has a Pro setting too (Score:2)
Full control over everything with RAW output; it's in the "More" shooting menu. Been around for a few years at least, it came with my old Galaxy S10.
Of course, those of us in the know have installed the hacked Camera.app from the Pixel; Google's computational photography for Night Mode is leaps and bounds ahead of Sammy or Apple.
Phone is inferior to ff DSLR/ML (Score:5, Interesting)
There is an Android app that I've run on a Pixel 2 that lets you control aperture/ISO/shutter and shoot in RAW. You can run it on other things too -- I just happen to have a Pixel 2. You don't need one of those Sonys.
The image quality is equivalent in nearly all ways to shooting on a good 12MP fullframe DSLR with a medium-quality 28mm f/11 lens that has a minimum ISO of around 2000 -- in terms of the resolution, depth of field, and number of photons captured per pixel at any given light level.
The way you phrase it, it sounds like the phone is equivalent to the full frame DSLR. One has to read your statement carefully to see you're recommending the camera. For those who don't play with cameras F11 is INCREDIBLY disadvantageous to image quality and ISO 2000 is really not anything a professional photographer would intentionally use. In order to get a decent image indoors, I rely on ISO 100 and F1.4 (Sigma art lenses are really sharp that aperture)
To every idiot who believes a phone is just as good as a camera, I challenge you to open it up on a 5k monitor. Yes, if you're viewing it on your old tiny scratched-up iPhone 4s screen, you may not notice the difference in outdoor photos, particularly if you have bad eyesight. I hear this constantly.
Open a photo taken with a full frame body with a prime lens on a 4k or above desktop monitor. The $100 Canon f1.8 50mm is a great example lens. Now open your phone photos...pick the nicest iPhone/Pixel camera you can get your hands on. If you're at the beach on a sunny day, the differences are admittedly minimal. Now take both indoors and view the photos on the monitor. The difference is massive. The camera photo will have a lot less noise and more detailed picture.
Comparing phones to cameras is like comparing earbuds to studio monitor headphones or audiophile speakers. With enough technology, you can make an earbud sound OK, but the best earbuds made never sound as good as a very basic set of nice headphones. It's a matter of physics. Just as the large speaker/drivers from audiophile headphones/speakers blow earbud drivers out of the water in sound reproduction, the large sensor a full frame body has would make a terrible phone. It would be huge and drain your battery. The tiny sensor in a phone takes terrible pictures. We use real cameras because the image difference is huge.
We're not hipsters. Trust me, if I could take the same photo with that sensor and thus 1/10th of the weight, I'd not lug around this heavy gear. Professional cameras would use iPhone sensors on tiny, lightweight bodies with substantially lighter lenses if they could...but they can't. Not only camera nerds, but Hollywood as well. They would GLADLY change out their heavy heavy digital cinema cameras for a gopro if they could get decent results...it would save them tons of money.
So the correct way to view a camera phone is the same way you view earbuds. You're sacrificing quality for convenience. No earbuds sound as good as my 20 year old inexpensive studio monitors, but those don't fit in my pocket. Likewise, if you think your phone takes as good of pictures as my Canon Full Frame mirrorless (R6), you're sorely mistaken. Your iPhone is definitely more convenient, but with all Apple's research into computational image enhancement (and it is significant and noteworthy), it can't overcome the physical limitations of a tiny sensor.
Just view the photos on a computer monitor and the difference will be quite obvious. While 5k monitors are expensive and not very common today, you know in 10 years they will be cheap and ubiquitous and you'll probably regret taking your most precious photos on your iphone when they look noisy and grainy and shitty and you can barely make out your kids' faces.
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" While 5k monitors are expensive and not very common today, you know in 10 years they will be cheap and ubiquitous and you'll probably regret taking your most precious photos on your iphone when they look noisy and grainy and shitty and you can barely make out your kids' faces."
Soon as windows improves it's scaling.
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Just view the photos on a computer monitor and the difference will be quite obvious. While 5k monitors are expensive and not very common today, you know in 10 years they will be cheap and ubiquitous and you'll probably regret taking your most precious photos on your iphone when they look noisy and grainy and shitty and you can barely make out your kids' faces.
I'm sitting here using a computer with a very nice 5K display. Know where I look at my photos 99% of the time? My phone screen.
I'm not saying that cell phone cameras take pictures every bit as good as a DSLR. They don't. More glass has real benefits, especially when you want to photograph something far away — say, for example, you want to take pictures at a concert or a play. Physics says it's so, and I'm not gonna argue.
All this said... you know when I have my phone? All the time, because it's in my
Do what you like. I wish I did better long ago (Score:2)
Music sounds much better on my home speakers or a nice pair of full sized headphones as well. Many folks are happy never listening to music on anything but their airpods.
Likewise, some people are happy only eating at Taco Bell. I think my local ta
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You don't even need to pay that much to get a decent camera thee days. Image sensors have not improved much since 2010 or so (with the Nikon D7000 and Olympus E-M5 for crop sensors, and the more recent Nikon D610 or D750 era for fullframe).
Anyone getting into serious photography would do well to get a used camera and spend most of their budget on good lenses that match the sort of photography they want to do. This is the opposite of what a lot of people do, which is to get a high-end camera and shoot a f/5.
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"I rely on ISO 100 and F1.4 (Sigma art lenses are really sharp that aperture)"
LOL you RELY on that? Sure. Few photographers even own a lens that fast and those that do rarely use it wide open. NO ONE RELIES on f/1.4. Ever.
And why not f/1.2? Or f/1.0? Those exist. Why cheap shit Sigma 1.4's?
Your posing is SuperKendall class. No one knowledgable, whether about photography or audio, speaks like you do. Those who pretend to be knowledgable do.
No one knows as much as you do. (Score:2)
"I rely on ISO 100 and F1.4 (Sigma art lenses are really sharp that aperture)"
LOL you RELY on that? Sure. Few photographers even own a lens that fast and those that do rarely use it wide open. NO ONE RELIES on f/1.4. Ever.
And why not f/1.2? Or f/1.0? Those exist. Why cheap shit Sigma 1.4's?
Your posing is SuperKendall class. No one knowledgable, whether about photography or audio, speaks like you do. Those who pretend to be knowledgable do.
Yup..you caught me. I am a supreme poser..along with Canon, Nikon, every major camera blog, BH Photo, Adorama, my local camera store. You caught us all. You're right. Few people own a 1.4 lens. You're correct. Canon has barely every sold an L series lens, despite nearly all of their primes being 1.4. All those people I see walking around with red ring lenses...they just painted them on themselves. There's no way Canon actually sold an L series prime lens, right? All the reviewers who praise Sigma Art
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Out of curiosity, which Sigma f/1.4 are you using? I've thought about getting the 35/1.4 for night landscapes. I have their 14/1.8 and it is great, but it is a specialized tool when I need to go *super* wide, and stars in the corners can get a little janky. (I don't blame Sigma for this since few people would even dare to make an f/1.8 14mm in the first place.)
In general Sigma lenses are excellent, of course, and the person you're replying to clearly doesn't know what they're talking about.
Can't go wrong with Sigma Art (Score:2)
Out of curiosity, which Sigma f/1.4 are you using? I've thought about getting the 35/1.4 for night landscapes. I have their 14/1.8 and it is great, but it is a specialized tool when I need to go *super* wide, and stars in the corners can get a little janky. (I don't blame Sigma for this since few people would even dare to make an f/1.8 14mm in the first place.)
In general Sigma lenses are excellent, of course, and the person you're replying to clearly doesn't know what they're talking about.
I almost exclusively use Sigma Art. I've had Canon L and Tamron G2 2.8 24-70 and 70-200. I still use the Tamron G2 zooms on rare occasion, but have sold every canon lens I own. I liked the image quality on the Sigma Arts so much I don't want to use anything else.
In my case, I am only taking pics of my kids and occasionally friends.
I can't comment to night photos other than I was able to get nice shots of friends and family around a campfire at night at 85mm 1.4. My wife's expensive iPhone literally
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When is the last time you shot with a Sigma lens?
Sigma, for a long time, was a cut-price "off brand". Sometime around 2013 Sigma completely rebranded themselves (changed the trade dress on all their lenses) and started making absolute top quality glass. The first two releases in the new line were a fullframe 35/1.4 and an APS-C format 18-35 f/1.8 -- yes, an f/1.8 zoom. Both lenses are incredibly sharp. (I have the latter and it is as good as the reviews say. I have made huge prints from it at f/1.8 and they
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One has to read your statement carefully to see you're recommending the camera. For those who don't play with cameras F11 is INCREDIBLY disadvantageous to image quality and ISO 2000 is really not anything a professional photographer would intentionally use.
I have shot a number of good images at ISO 2000 on modern cameras. They're definitely degraded compared to base ISO, but they are certainly usable, and even an ISO 4000 image from a crop camera can be printed 16x24 if it is well exposed and carefully processed. (I have done this and intend to enter such a print in a contest this year -- sometimes it's just plain dark and you do what you have to do to get a sharp image.) But ISO 2000 is not that bad on fullframe.
But my comment was, indeed, intended for reade
Re:Standards. (Score:4, Informative)
Just what the world needs, another codec [indiefilmsllc.com] and this one requires quicktime.
No, it doesn't. The ffmpeg library has provided ProRes for years. I've used it for output from OBS on Linux.
Re: Standards. (Score:2)
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And where AVC is used in video production, it's at very high bitrates and typically something like AVC-Intra. The likes of Sony XAVC and Panasonic AVC-Ultra are a long way from consumer/distrubtion forms of AVC.
Apple ProRaw and ProRes422 sound like ways to encourage spending more on expensive iPhone or iCloud storage as they'll chew through these very quickly. Maybe there's a niche for it though?
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I can't even imagine trying to shoot ProRes on a phone. There's no way to get data out of a phone quickly enough to store it. At 4K60, Prores 4444 XQ is 1.9 Gbps. That means on a 128 GB phone (for example), you'll get only about ten minutes of video. But copying that recording to your computer over Lightning will take you 36 minutes.
Even the lowest-quality ProRes format, ProRes 422 Proxy, is 388 Mbps, which gives you only about 50% duty cycle on your phone once you factor in the time spent pulling the
Re: Standards. (Score:2)
Lightning is a huge bottleneck for pro use of an iPhone for video purposes. Exactly no one will seriously consider doing ProRes shooting on a phone with a Lightning port beyond people who are doing it as a publicity stunt.
Now if only there were a faster interface; perhaps one that Apple already offers on a mobile deviceâ¦
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Yeah, but there can't possibly be a better host-peripheral interface than Lightning, can there? I mean, it's a whole 480 megabits per second. That's so fast — way faster than my Zip drive! And think about how much money the MFi program makes. You can't possibly beat that. :-/
Sorry, I'm just feeling very snarky when thinking about the fact that we're still stuck with Lightning and circa-Y2K USB 2.0 speeds seven years after the rest of the world moved on to USB-C and 10 Gbps data rates.
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Yeah, but there can't possibly be a better host-peripheral interface than Lightning, can there? I mean, it's a whole 480 megabits per second. That's so fast — way faster than my Zip drive! And think about how much money the MFi program makes. You can't possibly beat that. :-/
Sorry, I'm just feeling very snarky when thinking about the fact that we're still stuck with Lightning and circa-Y2K USB 2.0 speeds seven years after the rest of the world moved on to USB-C and 10 Gbps data rates.
Actually, the lightning to USB 3 camera adapter can go a lot faster on specific iPads [bhphotovideo.com]. Strange that they don't use the speeds elsewhere. That said, they've migrated two of the three iPads as well as all their laptops to USB C. Let's hope they do it for iPhone too...
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Yeah, but there can't possibly be a better host-peripheral interface than Lightning, can there? I mean, it's a whole 480 megabits per second. That's so fast — way faster than my Zip drive! And think about how much money the MFi program makes. You can't possibly beat that. :-/
Sorry, I'm just feeling very snarky when thinking about the fact that we're still stuck with Lightning and circa-Y2K USB 2.0 speeds seven years after the rest of the world moved on to USB-C and 10 Gbps data rates.
I was thinking more on the llnes of the TB3 interface on the M1-based iPad. Why can't that migrate to the iPhone as a high-speed interface? Even if it's just cheap-ass 20 Gbps TB, it would still rock!
Re: Standards. (Score:2)
Apple ProRaw and ProRes422 sound like ways to encourage spending more on expensive iPhone or iCloud storage as they'll chew through these very quickly.
Or maybe, just maybe, ease of downstream editing and most of the advantages of RAW at a significant storage savings is what Apple is offering their users.
Why is it always some nefarious or money-grubbing motivation when it comes to Apple?
You haters are as delusional as the Trumplicans.
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That's a weird thing to say. You're very quick to label people, aren't you? Why on earth would you though given that I'm an ardent Apple user?
Somethings will have to change in a big way for this to make sense beyond a tiny niche. Lens, sensor, storage, connectivity, ergonmics. There just aren't enough ben
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That's a weird thing to say. You're very quick to label people, aren't you? Why on earth would you though given that I'm an ardent Apple user?
Somethings will have to change in a big way for this to make sense beyond a tiny niche. Lens, sensor, storage, connectivity, ergonmics. There just aren't enough benefits on the devices as they stand to make it worthwhile and noticable in the final output. It's like an audiophile insisting that spending thousands more for their speakers will make their MP3s sound good. It makes even less than watching 4K video on a phone.
Anything that eliminates JPEG artifacts and gives more downstream control is an improvement.
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If you think you're seeing "JPEG" artefacts, then it's possible this format won't help and there's already a problem with encoder's input signal. It's also possible thay they have a poor HEVC encoder or poorly configured one because the bitrates are certainly high enough to get > 44 dB or VMAF > 90 with my employer's HEVC encoder. If you're converting it to AVC when you copy it off the phone, the transcode could introduce errors too.
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Just what the world needs, another codec [indiefilmsllc.com] and this one requires quicktime.
I remember when Slashdot commenters were actually technical and knew about such things.
ProRes has been around for decades. It's not new. And its a very handy codec for video editors.
Pencil (Score:1)
For whatever reason my large, cold, death-like fingers don't work right on modern phones. Give us no-fingerprint fogies a dang pencil, Apple.
What? It's gonna be smaller? OH, for the love of . . . Get off my lawn.
How about a through-screen fingerprint scanner? (Score:3, Insightful)
FaceID is pointless with masks here to stay, so it would be nice to have TouchID back in some form, even if it is a button on the back which does it. Cameras are great, but it would be nice to see some more useful stuff:
Multiple sub-users on the phone. If I want to use a phone for IDs, I want a mode where whomever is looking at the phone can't just flip up and look at everything. In fact, I'd like a work "user", home "user", and some type of PIN to swap between them. Ideally, containers with separate filesystems, so the Office app in the "work" user container does not have access to the Office app in the "home" user container, and vice versa.
Some assurances more than "just take our word" for security. If it can't be done in some countries, that's fine, but other places that Europe which value privacy, it would be nice to have a neutral/trusted third party be able to audit things, showing that there are no backdoors, and there are steps to prevent another Pegasus style attack.
A method for backing up a phone that isn't all or nothing. Would be nice to bump all saved data completely to iCloud so I can load an old game on a replacement phone.
If it has to be cameras, at least get feature parity with Samsung with the default apps.
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Would be nice if other cloud apps could have the same level of support as iCloud. Because iOS aggressively kills off background apps you have to open them and keep the screen on to let them finish uploads, but iCloud seems to be exempt from this requirement.
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FaceID is pointless with masks here to stay, so it would be nice to have TouchID back in some form, even if it is a button on the back which does it. Cameras are great, but it would be nice to see some more useful stuff:
Multiple sub-users on the phone. If I want to use a phone for IDs, I want a mode where whomever is looking at the phone can't just flip up and look at everything. In fact, I'd like a work "user", home "user", and some type of PIN to swap between them. Ideally, containers with separate filesystems, so the Office app in the "work" user container does not have access to the Office app in the "home" user container, and vice versa.
Some assurances more than "just take our word" for security. If it can't be done in some countries, that's fine, but other places that Europe which value privacy, it would be nice to have a neutral/trusted third party be able to audit things, showing that there are no backdoors, and there are steps to prevent another Pegasus style attack.
A method for backing up a phone that isn't all or nothing. Would be nice to bump all saved data completely to iCloud so I can load an old game on a replacement phone.
I agree in general with everything you said there, but I'd rather have a (usable) way to back up a phone locally to my NAS via Time Machine. Being limited to a single cloud-based backup is pretty close to useless for anything other than catastrophic loss of the device, as it means you have no history. If something gets deleted or corrupted, it's gone. That's not a backup, or at least not a meaningful backup, particularly when the user isn't in control over when it decides to push its contents to the clou
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Ideally, containers with separate filesystems, so the Office app in the "work" user container does not have access to the Office app in the "home" user container, and vice versa.
iOS has had secure containers for some time through its enterprise provisioning features. It's not as user-visible as on Android where the apps get the little briefcase overlay and I don't think it offers a one-button solution to switch the work profile "off".
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+1 for the TouchID. I've been sticking to my old 8+ because of that. I wasn't too keen on FaceID to start with as it requires you to hold the phone up and stare at it, but the mask requires in most countries have made it much worse.
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Same here My 6s's second after market batter just gave up the ghost and I replaced it with a pixel 4a because I didn't want to lose the headphone jack or deal with FaceId.
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FaceID is pointless with masks here to stay
Huh? Do the Mask Police arrest you for dropping it for the five seconds it takes to unlock your phone?
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If police are looking for a pretext to mess with you, taking the mask off will give them one. It has happened already - look at the political opponents arrested in various places like Myanmar and Russia who have been arrested under the pretext of breaking isolation protocols.
Better 5G battery life? (Score:3)
I'm not certain on this, but at least the folks over at MacRumors have hinted that a major reason to want these upcoming iPhones vs the current release is a far more battery-efficient 5G cellular radio.
Kodak's business was run over by Apple (Score:1)
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Kodak was long gone before Apple had an iPhone. Nothing but Apple fanboy revisionist history here.
Re: Kodak's business was run over by Apple (Score:2)
Yep, digital cameras were in everyone's pocket (or backpack) long before phones had them. And the first (flip) phone cameras were total crap.
Also, I would assume a product manager would have better writing skills, even in late retirement.
Spying (Score:1)
Why are these called phones? (Score:1)
Counting On Consumers Not Knowing What Pro (Score:2)
#13? (Score:2)
SmartPhones are boring now. (Score:2)
With the iPhone X and the Samsung S8 being the last major improvement in actual phone design, the new stuff just being incremental hardware upgrades, and a better camera. They are just not as interesting anymore, being that nearly everyone has a Premium Smartphone today, there is no Status, in having a new phone, nor any shame on holding onto an older one.
For a while 2009 - 2018 you could tell quickly how current or out of date someone was by just looking at their phone, today not so much, and also most o