Apple’s iPhone 13 might be getting some really exciting new features that could be game-changing. The rumoured new features are camera focused and bring some amazing creative tools to both video and photography.
The big headline here is the ability to shoot and edit videos using ProRes. For video people, this is significant because ProRes is a high quality format that tries to reduce the quality loss that comes with compression, while creating files that can be edited with minimal fuss. The format is used on Macs and Apple’s own Final Cut editing software. This might be exclusive to the Pro models, but it would be significant for creators who shoot on their phones but then edit footage later.
While we don’t know what form this will take in the phone, ProRes also allows the generation of proxy files. These are smaller and more manageable, and can be edited on low-power systems and then later switched with the high quality versions for the final render. If that was part of the iPhone, it could make on-device edits really snappy, while still allowing the final clip to be very high quality.
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Aside from all of that, the control and wide support for ProRes makes this very good news indeed. Moving files from the iPhone to a Mac would then allow you more creative control during editing and preserve far more detail. In professional cinema, cameras like the Arri Alexa can record in ProRes for certain video types. It’s also been supported on BlackMagic cameras too, although that company now has its own compression system for newer models.
The rumours, which come from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, also suggest that Apple will introduce a portrait mode for video, similar to the one on still images. This is a bit of a technical challenge because in photos this is a processing intensive system and while excellent, can still sometimes run into problems when edges aren’t sharp. Adding this mode to video would create a cinema-like effect for video, similar to shooting with a very shallow depth of field.
Additional photo editing filters will also make use of AI to allow control over the finished image. Perhaps adding depth to shadows or tweaking the colour balance of certain objects in the frame. That might mean you can have vivid colours for grass and flowers, but more realistic skin tones for people. Check out iPhone 13 expected release date, price, specs and more to find out when we're likely to see Apple's new phones.
