iPhone 16 improves Vision Pro experience with spatial photos
The Apple Vision Pro Second only to the unveiling of the new iPhone 16 series at Apple’s iPhone event in September, the company’s latest iPhones offer enhanced Vision Pro capabilities. In addition to a dedicated camera button, the iPhone 16 got a significant photography-centric upgrade. It can now shoot 3D spatial photos and videos with its differently oriented dual rear cameras. While the entire new lineup can shoot extra spatial content, iPhone 16 Pro has besides spatial photo/video recording also 3D spatial audio recordingThese new features ensure that Vision Pro owners can enjoy better, more immersive content.
The iPhone 15 Pro already supports spatial video recordingbut not photos. The iPhone 16 and 16 Pro can do both. The camera orientation now places both cameras on the same plane, meaning they’re evenly spaced for landscape photos. (Like the iPhone 15 Pro, spatial photos and video can’t be shot vertically.)
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There will certainly be more iPhones capable of capturing 3D content, but so few people own a Vision Pro that it’s still unclear how anyone else can appreciate the immersive 3D photos and video without a $3,500 space computer. Meta’s Quest headsets can also display Apple’s spatial videos and hopefully it will work with spatial photos too.
At some point, Apple may have a more affordable Vision headset. When that happens, expect Apple’s iPhone camera capture technology to evolve even further, with more advantages for spatial audio/video capture. None of Apple’s current iPhone 3D capture capabilities come close to the immersive video format that Apple captures with its specialty high-end Blackmagic camerasbut I’m very curious to see how new features will continue to settle into future iPhone camera updates each year.
Read more about everything Apple announced at its September event.
