Apple unveiled the iPhone 13 a month ago. As the product is still rolling out across the globe, Apple executives reflect back on the company’s 15 years of smartphone camera revolution and discuss how the iPhone 13 improves this experience.
Apple’s VP of software camera engineering Jon McCormack, VP of hardware camera engineering Graham Townsend, and iPhone product manager Louis Dudley were interviewed by Exame’s Thiago Lavado.
In this interview, McCormack and Townsend talk about what’s Apple’s goal to create the best camera experience for its users.
“We can look at over 100 years of photography and cinematography history to understand how photographers and fillmmakers use these available tools to create greate images and films. What we questioned ourselves is how can we bring this to everyone,” says McCormack.
Thanks to the A15 Bionic chip and software improvements, Apple was able to bring one of these “industry exclusive” features for the iPhone 13 with the Cinematic Mode. Here, at 9to5Mac, our colleague Ben Lovejoy showed a very good real test with this function, and although it’s still in the early stage, he got impressed by this first-gen feature, as you can read more about it here.
Jon McCormack to Exame explained what Apple had to do to bring Cinematic mode to iPhone 13 users and still make it look as easy as tapping a button.
“Video segmentation is so much more complex. You need to capture the depth of a scene in real time in each of the frames, something we’ve achieved with the A15 Bionic’s neural engine,” he adds.
For Townsend, while talking about the depth of field used by Cinematic mode that can even be edited after the scene was recorded, says “it’s interesting how the approach from the hardware side has changed to reflect that. Hardware is the foundation. We need to think about how the software will use this information going forward and this is part of that cooperation.”
With Photography Styles, Cinematic mode, improved sensors in low-light, LiDAR scanner, and more are tools for users to take advantage of their iPhone and tell their own stories:
“This is our goal. When we put a new lens, we’re trying to extend the use of photography that people can achieve without needing to teach them about a feature or making a function too complex,” said Townsend.
“Our business is to let people create their own memories and tell their own stories. Professionals use our devices to work but what excite us the most is normal people telling their own stories,” finishes McCormack.
If you want to learn more about the iPhone 13, don’t forget to check out our guide here.
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