Mike Wuerthele
At a glance, there don't appear to be many new features in the second beta of iOS 17.2 — with the exception of Spatial Video recording for Apple Vision Pro.
One of the features of the Apple Vision Pro is that it includes Apple's first three-dimensional camera, capable of taking spatial photographs and videos that can be viewed via the headset. Apple promised the feature would arrive "later" for iPhone 15 Pro, and the first vestiges of it are available in iOS 17.2 beta 2.
Videos are shot in 1080p, and Apple says that they will take about 130 megabytes per minute of video — which is about 40% more than it takes for a minute of non-3D 1080p video. The files are stored in what Apple calls "Apple HEVC Stereo Video" format, with the "hvc1" codec.
Both left-eye and right-eye views are carried in each video sample of the track, and the format allows the primary eye to be either the right or left. Apple requires that a reader that does not support multiview video should be able to decode the base layer of the video track for presentation without a stereoscopic treatment for backward compatibility features.
How the tracks will differ when shot on the Apple Vision Pro, versus on an iPhone 15 Pro isn't clear. The camera separation on the Apple Vision Pro approximates that of the human eye gap, while the center of the lenses on an iPhone 15 Pro is about a half-inch.
AppleInsider will test this feature in the coming days. Ultimately, the final judgment will have to wait until the Apple Vision Pro ships in 2024.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
7 Comments
I wonder if Apple could include Spatial Audio recording on the iPhone at some point, (in other words, a built in ambisonic mic with an SoC co-processor and a preference on how to decode it, unless it's Spatial Audio only - or at least make the files compatible with Logic Pro ). The mic array will have to somehow use an algorithm that would create an Ambisonics array out of their mics, because physically it's impossible to record Atmos/Spatial Audio ready audio without an ambisonic capsule array. I would think a special renderer on the SoC could handle this but I'm not exactly sure if it's possible.
If so, that's a feature that I'd buy a new iPhone for alone. Small market I know.
I'm just gonna say what everyone is thinking: the big users of this tech will be the porn industry.
I have to wonder if next year’s iPhone 16 Pro iPhones might have an extra ‘regular’ wide camera about 2.5” center to center away from current location towards the other end of the iPhone for landscape mode. That’s the average distance between the center of each iris, or between each retina (2.5”= 63mm average). That would be to shoot in landscape. Optionally it could be fudged for lower end of range for 2.2” or 67mm for portrait mode and located across the top.