The square camera sensor sounds like one of the things that only nerds will like, but as New Forward 18-megapixel “center stage” camera On the iPhone 17 lineup, it could have a huge impact on Apple users. They will no longer need to turn their phones to take selfies in the landscape, especially if they need to fit a large number of people, as this is all handled automatically by the center stage. This is the feature that “Why don’t I think so?” other phone manufacturers may copy, simply because it’s very practical. Those square camera sensors could once again make Apple a pioneer in selfies.
We introduce the idea of the 2010 modern forward camera from the iPhone 4 and HTC Evo 4G. (It still hurts Apple took two years to release the iPhone 5 with LTE, which makes FaceTime more useful.)
iPhone Air Selfie Camera
(Sam Rutherford)
During the iPhone 17 launch event, Apple revealed that its customers took 500 billion selfies last year, a huge number that shows how normalized the exercises are. They are often ridiculed when they are considered the authority of Instagram-obsessed teenage girls, but nowadays, seeing everyone from older people to a series of sports brothers gather on a phone in a phone, like worshiping the same thing. And, personally, they are really the only way to get a whole family photo, especially when you juggle two clumsy kids.
We take photos to preserve memories, but the intimacy of selfies makes people feel unique. Not only do you want to capture your position, but you are also recording yourself with those around you. By making selfies easier, you will start taking more selfies and eventually tie yourself to Apple’s ecosystem. This leads to the need for the iPhone to have more storage space and may back up space offline. If you have to take a side photo of your phone for a landscape selfie, or if you can’t access all the precious memories in the Apple Photos library, you won’t jump to your Android phone either.
Square camera sensors keep you loyal.
It will also change the way iPhone users take frontal videos. The center stage automatically puts you at the center of FaceTime calls, so you don’t have to worry about framing yourself. While I haven’t seen this specific feature in action, it should also help relieve the headache of turning your phone in a FaceTime call to match the recipient’s device. (Or, maybe I’m just tired of telling my parents to flip their phones when face chat has huge black borders.)
This may be a stretch, but I can see that the center stage front camera makes you more common with the front and rear cameras to record videos. While it’s new to iPhone as a “double capture”, we’ve seen Samsung and Nokia (remember #Bothie?) Android devices, but they never really took off. Tiktok’s dual-camera live streaming mode is more successful, and video cameras such as MixCam are also built around dual recordings. With dual capture on the iPhone 17, the center stage can keep you in the middle of the action with the front camera, which should allow you to focus more on using the rear lens to get the best shot.
While I would love to see Apple stuffing more pixels into the 18MP center stage camera, moving to a square sensor would be more impactful for all of the above reasons. Putting in a higher resolution sensor is easy, and fundamentally rethinking how to improve on things like selfies is hard.
