iPhone

Apple’s latest gallery, showing off the iPhone 12 series camera. Follow the headline link and scroll through these photos. Some beautiful work there.

If you’ve read about Shortcuts, but felt a bit overwhelmed by the learning curve, here’s a great, simple project, perfect for dipping your toes in the water.

In a nutshell:

• Fire up the Shortcuts app on your iPhone
• Tap the Automation tab at the bottom of the screen
• Tap “Create Personal Automation”
• Scroll to the bottom and tap “Charger”
• Make sure “Is Connected” is selected
• Tap “Next”
• In the search field that appears (bottom of screen), type “Speak”. The action “Speak Text” should appear. Tap on it.
• Tap the “Text” area and type some text to speak, like “Charging”
• Tap “Next”
• Tap to turn off “Ask Before Running”.
• Tap “Done”

That’s it. Now plug in your iPhone and it will speak the text. Let the pranks begin!

One last note: To delete the shortcut (on the off chance that the novelty wears off), drag it to the left and tap Delete.

Kirk McElhearn, digging into ProRAW:

One of the key elements of raw files is that they are not demosaiced.

Demosaiced? That’s a new term for me.

From the Demosaicing Wikipedia page:

A digital image process used to reconstruct a full color image from the incomplete color samples output from an image sensor overlaid with a color filter array (CFA). It is also known as CFA interpolation or color reconstruction.

Most modern digital cameras acquire images using a single image sensor overlaid with a CFA, so demosaicing is part of the processing pipeline required to render these images into a viewable format.

Many modern digital cameras can save images in a raw format allowing the user to demosaic them using software, rather than using the camera’s built-in firmware.

OK, got it, back to Kirk:

When you open a raw file in an editing, your software processes the file, performing the demosaicing, along with some other processing, and then allows you to then proceed with other edits. Because of this, there are a number of photo editing apps that perform this demosaicing in slightly different ways; photographers choose the app they prefer according to the results (and for other editing capabilities as well).

But Apple’s ProRAW has already done this demosaicing, which means that, well, it’s not a raw file.

This is just the beginning of a long, interesting take on ProRAW. If you are into the camera side of your iPhone, this is definitely worth a read.

CNET:

We know the iPhone 12 can handle spills and splashes, but Apple may be downplaying just how water-resistant this phone really is. The iPhone 12’s IP68 rating means it can survive up to 19.6 feet (6 meters) of water for 30 minutes. This applies to all four iPhone 12 models: the iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. But we discovered that like its predecessor, Apple’s newest iPhone can handle a great deal more than that. Both of the iPhone 11 models far exceeded the official rating, surviving a 39-foot dive in salt water in Monterey Bay, California. This year we took a brand-new iPhone 12 for a swim in the frigid fresh water of Lake Tahoe, on the other side of the Golden State, to test it out.

This is a bit of fun, testing Apple’s iPhone 12 water resistance claims, both at 19.6 feet for 30 minutes, then much deeper for a bit longer.

If your iPhone purchases are driven by the camera, this is an excellent read. Sebastiaan lends his expertise here and shows the difference in the iPhone 12 Pro Max sensor, both in comparison to the older sensor, and in terms of what that bigger sensor means in practical terms.

In a nutshell:

Giving these sensor sites more room and making them larger makes them more sensitive to light. More light means more signal, less noise, and sharper results.

This point is backed up with images. As you scroll through, make sure you get all the way to the low light images as the sun starts setting. The lower the light, the more value the sensor brings to the table.

First things first, there’s Austin Mann’s comprehensive review. Read the detailed comments, check out the images and videos. There’s a lot to process.

Don’t miss the wish list and low light shooting tips at the end of Austin’s post. And, most importantly, don’t miss the decision tree at the very end, which lays out the questions you should ask yourself before you plunk down your hard earned cash for the upgrade.

Next up, there’s Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max review: The best smartphone camera you can get, by The Verge’s Nilay Patel.

While it’s expensive, it’s not that much more expensive than the smaller iPhone 12 Pro: it’s just $100 more at every storage level, starting at $1,099 with 128GB of storage and going up to $1,399 for 512GB of storage. For that money, you get a larger display, a bigger battery, and a very different camera system. I’ll just cut to the chase and say it’s absolutely worth it over the standard 12 Pro if you can deal with the size — but it’s a lot of size. And the camera is worth exploring in depth, because there’s a lot going on.

And that says it all. Bigger sensor, better camera, more battery, bigger display, at $100 and some not insignificant pocket size/weight.

As you make your way through these reviews, think about the types of photos you take. On my end, I take a lot of photos of moving things, like cats, birds, and people. If that’s you, make sure you read the reviews with that in mind, keep your eye peeled for those sorts of examples.

If you hew more toward nature photography, I would definitely dive deep into Austin Mann’s immersive review. And if you are exploring the difference between different high-end smartphone cameras, spend some time on the slide-over shots in Nilay’s review.

PetaPixel:

Since the Pro Max marks the first time in a while that Apple changed the size of its camera sensor, PetaPixel spoke to two Apple executives who outlined the company’s vision and design philosophy behind camera development.

In an interview with Apple’s Product Line Manager, iPhone Francesca Sweet and Vice President, Camera Software Engineering Jon McCormack, both made clear that the company thinks of camera development holistically: it’s not just the sensor and lenses, but also everything from Apple’s A14 Bionic chip, to the image signal processing, to the software behind its computational photography.

This is an interesting read, especially the discussion of the new, bigger sensor in the iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac, digs into the new MagSafe iPhone Leather Wallet.

My biggest concern is the stickiness of the wallet. If I wedge my iPhone into a tight pocket, how hard would it be to accidentally dislodge the wallet, especially with a rear pocket?

It can definitely fall off easier than you’d hope. But I think once you get used to it, you’ll be aware of how to carefully put it in your pocket (especially with tight jeans/pants etc.) so you don’t knock it off.

So awareness is key here. No worries on demagnetizing your credit cards, but know that you’ll need to pay attention when you pick up and pocket your iPhone with wallet attached.

Lory Gil, iMore:

Coming soon to iOS 14.2, alongside iPhone 12 Pro, and soon iPhone 12 Pro Max, Apple is introducing another amazing new accessibility technology that makes fantastic use of the LiDAR scanner. It’s called People Detection, and it is astounding.

And:

People Detection uses People Occlusion in ARKit and the LiDAR scanner on the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max, as well as the iPad Pro. The LiDAR scanner measures the distance from the device to objects within 15 feet, in real-time. Then combining this data with People Occlusion with ARKit to determine if there are any people in the field of view and then gives continuous feedback about how far away that person is.

Important distinction: The iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max support People Detection, the iPhone 12 and mini do not.

Read the rest of Lory’s post for details.

From this post by Stephen Aquino:

The goal is to help the visually impaired understand their surroundings—examples include knowing how many people there are in the checkout line at the grocery store, how close one is standing to the end of the platform at the subway station, and finding an empty seat at a table.

And:

Users can set a minimum distance for alerts—say, six feet for the aforementioned social distancing—as well as having an option to use haptic feedback to deliver those notifications. There also is audible feedback; if a person is wearing one AirPod, they will be notified when they’re in close proximity of a person or whatnot. People Detection is fully compatible with VoiceOver, Apple’s screen-reader technology.

With each new iPhone, I eagerly await Austin Mann’s camera review. Part of it is just experiencing Austin’s travels. This review took place in picturesque Glacier National Park in Montana.

Luxurious. Enjoy.

[VIDEO] Peter McKinnon puts the iPhone 12 Pro camera through its paces (video embedded in main Loop post). What I loved about this video are the zoomed in focus on images to see where they shine, and even where they fall flat.

One thing Peter points out that I’ve definitely experienced is the incredible sharpness throughout an image that machine learning makes possible, even in low light. Detail that would be difficult to replicate in a DSLR.