Hey guys it’s Greg with Apple Explained and today we’re going to explore the history
of the iPhone camera. This topic won last week’s voting poll and if you didn’t get
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When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, no one imagined that in just 10 years it would
become the most popular camera in the world. But it may not be surprising to photographers
like Chase Jarvis who famously said, “the best camera is the one you have with you.”
And owning an iPhone means a camera is with you at all times. A camera that lets you focus
on pointing and shooting rather than adjusting dozens of complicated settings. This level
of convenience is a big reason why it dominates the digital camera market today. But the iPhone’s
camera hasn’t always been thought of so favorably. Let’s go back to 2007 and take
a closer look at the camera included with the original iPhone.
One of the first things you might notice about this camera is that it doesn’t have a bump,
it sat flush with the iPhone chassis and this was the case with every model until the iPhone
6. This camera also might look kind’ve small. And that’s because it had a 2 megapixel
sensor so the opening only had to be 4.5mm wide. It took photos at a resolution of 1600
x 1200, which wasn’t too shabby back then. But the photo quality you got from this camera
left a lot to be desired. In fact, the two features that were criticized most about the
original iPhone was it’s speed over the EDGE network and the camera quality. So let
me show you some examples: As you can see, the iPhones camera has definitely come a long
way since 2007. The photos were hazy things got even worse in low light conditions. Also,
there was no autofocus or flash or video capabilities. All you had in the camera app was a button
to take a picture and that was it.
And not much changed with the next generation camera on the iPhone 3G. It was still 2 megapixels,
and still had no extra features like digital zoom or autofocus. Although Apple did add
geotagging to photos so you see the location where each photo was shot. Also, the diameter
of the camera area grew by .5mm and no one was really sure why. I believe the change
was cosmetic since the 3G was equip with the same exact camera system as the original iPhone.
So the iPhone camera didn’t experience its first true upgrade until the third generation
iPhone 3Gs. In fact, the camera was one of the 3Gs’ biggest features. Apple bumped
up the previous 2 megapixel system to 3 megapixels, and added essential features like auto-focus,
auto white balance, and auto macro. There was also a tap-to-focus feature which allowed
users to select an area for the camera to focus on. All of these new capabilities added
up to photos looking a lot sharper with better color accuracy. The camera was also capable
of capturing 640x480 VGA video, marking the first time video recording was natively supported
on the iPhone. Now eventually iOS 4 came along and added 5x digital zoom to this camera and
iOS 5 brought an auto focus lock and auto exposure lock when users long-pressed on a
certain area. There were also gridlines added for composing shots in iOS 5.
Now if you thought that upgrade was big, wait until you hear about the iPhone 4 camera.
I should actually say cameraS since it was the first iPhone to include two, the usual
rear-facing camera plus a front-facing camera. Let’s talk about the rear camera first.
The iPhone jumped from 3 megapixel sensor on the 3Gs to a 5 megapixel backside illuminated
sensor on the 4. And what is a backside illuminated sensor? Well because this was the first iPhone
camera to use multiple lens elements, Apple could arrange those elements a special way
to capture more light and improve low-light performance. There were a couple more features
that helped with low-light performance though, and those were the 2.8 aperture lens which
allowed more light to hit the image sensor, and the inclusion of an LED flash. Video recording
achieved HD quality at 720p and 30 frames per second. Now, the rear-facing camera had
matured into a very capable shooter. But the front facing camera was brand new and the
quality showed. It was only .3 megapixels and recorded VGA video which looked underwhelming
compared to the rear-camera. But it worked just fine for the occasional selfie and FaceTime
call which was Apple’s purpose for including it.
Even though the next generation iPhone was an "S" model, the 4S increased the rear camera's
resolution yet again from 5 megapixels to 8 megapixels, finally making it worthy of
replacing most point-and-shoots. And this is when Apple started referring to the iPhone’s
rear camera as an iSight camera, which served as a way to distinguish it from the iPhone’s
front-facing, lower quality camera. Video recording on the 4s was upgraded, taking it
to full 1080p HD resolution. There was also a more complex element array in the 4s’
camera system which, along with Apple’s A5 chip, allowed the camera to provide face
detection for still photos and about 30 percent better photo clarity and color accuracy compared
to the iPhone 4. The built-in gyroscope allowed for some image stabilization for the camera
while recording video, although it still had room for improvement, since state-of-the-art
image stabilization algorithms don’t really need a gyroscope, but image processing instead.
Other features of the camera was improved macro capabilities for close up shots, and
faster image capture since it was able to take its first picture in 1.1 seconds and
a following picture half a second later.
Now on to the iPhone 5. It’s iSight camera was still 8 megapixels like the iPhone 4S,
but the actual camera sensor improved to take better photos in low-light and to take photos
even quicker. And after two generations of low-quality selfies
and VGA FaceTime calls, the iPhone 5 boosted the front-facing camera quality to 1.2 megapixels,
allowing users actually see some detail in their faces for once. This also allowed the
front-facing camera to record video in 720p HD resolution. And thanks to iOS 6, the iPhone
5 could take beautiful panoramic photos by simply holding up the device and panning it
across the landscape.
Now this 8 megapixel iSight camera stayed around for the iPhone 5s, although the aperture
was improved from 2.4 to 2.2 to let in even more light. The flash was also upgraded from
a single LED to a dual LED "True Tone" module. One LED was the tradition white, while the
other was amber. But they didn’t just flash simultaneously. When you took a picture with
flash enabled, the iSight camera used software algorithms to assess the color temperature
of the scene. That allowed iPhone 5s to determine just the right percentage and intensity of
white light vs. amber light you needed — using over 1,000 unique combinations. This gave
photos more accurate colors and skin tones as opposed to the washed out photos from a
single LED. Two more new features of this camera was slow-motion video capture at 120
fps, and fast continuous photo shooting capable of capturing 10 photos a second.
Now the iPhone 5c was release alongside the 5s but its camera system was exactly the same
as the iPhone 5 so there isn’t anything to add, so let’s move on to the iPhone 6.
This is when the camera bump became an unfortunate reality for the iPhone line. In fact, you
can find videos of users demonstrating the inconveniences of this bump when it came to
things like laying the iPhone 6 on a flat surface. But this protrusion was necessary
in order to house its camera system which had a number of advantages despite having
the same 8 megapixels and five-element lens as its predecessor. It included 240 frames
per second slow motion and time-lapse video in addition to something called focus pixels.
This feature was enabled by the 6’s new image signal processor and provided the sensor
with more information about your image, enabling better and faster autofocusing. Face detection
technology was improved to recognize faces faster and more accurately. And users could
finally control the exposure manually by tapping and dragging up or down on the display. Auto
image stabilization tried compensating for motion blur and hand shaking by taking four
photos with a short exposure time and then stitching the best parts of those photos together
into one optimized image.
Now the iPhone 6 Plus had all of those features in addition to optical image stabilization
that worked with the A8 chip, gyroscope, and M8 motion coprocessor to measure motion data
and provide precise lens movement to compensate for hand shake. And the front facing camera
for both models were upgraded with a new sensor and a 2.2 aperture lens, along with support
for burst and HDR modes.
After years of sticking with an 8-megapixel sensor, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus cameras
finally moved up to 12 megapixels, allowing for even larger, higher-quality images. And
this brought with it some exciting features like 4K video recording, increased panorama
resolutions from 43-megapixels to 63 megapixels, and Live Photos. But you had to be careful
recording in 4k, since 40 minutes of footage would completely fill up a 16GB iPhone 6s.
The front-facing camera received a major upgrade, jumping from 1.2 megapixels to 5 megapixels.
And Retina flash, where the screen flashes 3x brighter just before selfies are taken,
made skin tones look more natural.
Now the iPhone SE was released between the 6s and the 7, and it’s camera system was
also caught between two iPhones. The iSight camera was identical to the 6s, while the
front-facing camera was borrowed from the 5s. And the SE was the last iPhone to feature
a flush camera without a bump.
But the next big camera upgrade arrived with the iPhone 7. It had the same 12-megapixel
iSight camera, but its was upgraded to a wider 1.8 aperture which, paired with the new six
element lens, meant the iPhone 7 took even better low-light photos. And the new quad-LED
"True Tone" flash was 50% brighter than the 6s. I should also point out that the camera
bump no longer had a metal ring, instead, Apple tried blending the bump so it appeared
to melt into the iPhone’s chassis for a much sleeker look. And optical image stabilization
came to the iPhone 7 which meant the feature was no longer exclusive to the Plus model.
Instead, something called portrait mode was featured on the 7 Plus which created a depth-of-field
effect that kept faces sharp while creating a beautifully blurred background. This was
made possible by a telephoto lens that also brought 2x optical zoom to the 7 Plus. The
front FaceTime HD camera on both models was upgraded to 7 megapixels and included something
called wide color capture which improved color accuracy.
Now on the iPhone 8, the camera bump was no longer seamlessly integrated into the chassis
due to its glass back. Instead, Apple returned to a metal bump like on the 6S. The camera
was still 12-megapixels with a 1.8 aperture, but there was a new "Slow Sync" flash feature
that would evenly light flash photography to make photos look more realistic. Instead
of a bright subject and a dark background, Slow Sync exposed both so that the lighting
in your photos appeared more natural. As for video, iPhone 8 added the option to record
footage at 24 and 60 fps. And upgrading to the 8 Plus got you a new camera feature called
portrait lighting, which used facial detection and depth maps to capture and edit portraits
with various shadow and spotlight effects.
Now, let’s talk about the iPhone X. It’s rear-facing camera system was virtually the
same as the iPhone 8, except the telephoto lens was upgraded from a 2.8 to a 2.4 aperture
and the lens received optical image stabilization. The front-facing camera experienced a bigger
upgrade, though, thanks to the TrueDepth sensor which enabled portrait lighting and features
like Animoji and memoji.
So that is the history of the iPhone camera, and if you want to vote for the next video
topic, don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.