What’s interesting is that McCormack disavows the notion that Apple concerns itself with simply rolling out new camera features with no rhyme or reason. On the contrary, Apple takes a close look at how iPhone owners actually use their devices and comes up with ways to improve the user experience and address any limitations.
This methodology, McCormack says, is how work on the Center Stage camera began. Apple observed that iPhone users would routinely employ a range of techniques to take good group selfies. Some of these hacks involved selfie sticks, using the 0.5 ultra-wide camera, and, in a scenario I’ve personally seen play out dozens of times, simply having whichever individual has the longest arms take the shot.
“What’s going on here,” McCormack said, “is that our users are trying to make the camera work for them, but we knew that we could do better… what if the camera could just understand what you’re trying to capture and then make those adjustments for you?”
Of course, to get the camera to make such adjustments on the fly, the entire camera system had to be rethought. The end result was a brand new square sensor. That, however, was only step one. Apple also had to take into account additional factors such as memory bandwidth, heat dissipation, and wide-angle distortion — an effect that often rears its ugly head when group photos are taken with the ultra-wide camera. To address potential pitfalls, Apple’s Megan Nash adds that the camera and sensor were designed together.
“With the new Center Stage camera, we grew the sensor to almost double the size of the previous sensor to match pixel-for-pixel sharpness,” Nash explains. “The result is a wider field of view that fits more people or background in the frame, along with excellent image quality—really the best of both worlds.”
All told, getting the system to work just right required months of testing. Apple worked hard to ensure that the feature worked as intended and wouldn’t, for example, try to include people in the background when framing selfie shots amongst a group of friends.
