In one of the most surprising moments of the 2022 Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple showcased a novel approach to improving the camera quality of your Mac laptop by…using your iPhone as a camera. Called Continuity on the Camera, this option will be integrated into macOS Ventura and will be a quality add-on for your Mac, instead of the sticky solution that seemed to have been hastily put together during the conference.
Karen Xing, engineer at Apple, explained at length how Continuity works on the camera and it’s worth watching in its entirety. The iPhone will appear as a webcam and a Mac microphone under several conditionslike running macOS 13 on your computer and iOS 16 on your iPhone.
The Center Frame camera feature that automatically keeps the subject equidistant from the frame, as well as the Portrait Mode and Studio Lighting options that Apple offers on some of its recent devices will also be available here, under the Center drop-down camera options. control of your iPhone, so you can swap them at will.
Xing also explains that Apple will provide iOS 16 and macOS 13 developers with an API that will allow their apps to automatically recognize and use your iPhone as a webcam for your Mac.
This means that not only will FaceTime, Zoom, or other popular video chat apps be available at launch, but potentially many more will be lined up, ensuring wider compatibility.
A very simple yet powerful feature
On a practical level, the Continuity option on the camera can be used automatically either when your iPhone is on a stand and connected with a USB cable, or wirelessly when your Mac detects an iPhone “nearby” for a Bluetooth or Wi-fi connection.
The Mac will be able to capture your iPhone screen in 1440p definition with a refresh rate of 60 frames per second, while you can also use Apple’s Desk View mode to project the flattened image from the ultra camera. -wide of the iPhone, although this one can only be captured at 30 frames per second.
Either way, the Continuity option on the camera that will land with iOS 16 and macOS 13 seems like a much more fleshed-out affair than what Apple had time to hint at during the keynote presentation.
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