Without knowing it, Apple was already applying social distancing measures when, in 2018, it filed a patent application protecting a feature allowing remote group selfies to be taken.
–
Group selfies and social distancing are mutually exclusive. A framework in which a patent obtained by Apple on June 2 might prove useful, knowing that it describes a way to assemble several individual selfies to form a group photo.
The patent in question describes a process which could operate using photos already taken, images taken from videos or photos taken at the time. It is also planned that the group selfie thus created can be modified a posteriori by its creator or by the other people with whom it would have been exchanged, so – for example – that a person present at the bottom of the image on one version can be inserted in the foreground on another.
Has Apple been particularly quick to react to the health situation by imagining such a functionality? Not at all ! The patent in question had been filed in 2018. And nothing says that Apple will one day transform this idea into application, even if – for once – this patent is very timely.
–
