Apple has been including Portrait Mode on iPhone models with only one back camera since the iPhone XR, but the iPhone Air is the first one to get a fully-featured Portrait Mode.
A brief history
When Apple introduced the iPhone XR, one of the headlining features was how it could take “dramatic portraits using a single camera lens”. However, these portraits were limited to just people and pets. So, if you wanted to take a portrait photo of something like a flower, you could not.
Similarly, the 2020 and 2022 iPhone SE models were also limited to taking portrait photos of just people and pets. And most recently, the iPhone 16e featured the same limitation.
Next-generation portraits with iPhone Air
New with iPhone Air is the ability to take full, “next-generation” portrait photos. This means you have the full feature set of “next-generation” portrait features, which was most recently updated with iPhone 15:
The main news here is that you can finally take portrait photos of any subject. For example, you can take a portrait photo of your breakfast:
Another useful feature is the ability to automatically capture depth information when taking a regular photo. This means that if you forget enable portrait mode when taking a photo, you can go back at any time and turn it on.
Wrap up
These new portrait features certainly make the compromise of only having one back camera much easier to accept. I personally found the next-generation portraits to be my favorite feature of my iPhone 15 Pro, so I am very happy to see the feature on iPhone Air!
iPhone Air is available for preorder now and will launch next week on Friday, September 19.
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