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How to shoot on iPhone 7 (apple.com)
376 points by waqasaday on May 12, 2017 | hide | past | favorite | 200 comments



I'm an Android user for 10 years now but.. every time one of those websites/ads appears its always from the same company.

Apple is so ahead of the other companies on actually promoting their stuff.


I am happy Android user as well and own Nexus 6P. One thing I tell everyone is that N6P takes as good photos as iPhone7/7P but Google is doing so poor job in communicating that through their marketing.


I had my 2013 Nexus 5 until it died, even after that one software update killed performance with no change in features.

I wanted to buy a Pixel XL. They weren't available. I live and work near mountain view. They were sold out even if you sign up for Google Fi (a trick a Googler friend suggested). I'm already on Google Voice so Fi would be awesome.

Could not get them for weeks.

I got tired of waiting and bought an iPhone 7 Plus. I love it. I dislike the closed software interface but don't want Samsung bloat so I saw it as the best other option. The hardware is great and I found out a lot of my friends are on iMessage. iCloud doesn't try to do creepy things. I like the fingerprint scanner.

I would have loved to try the Pixel.


Sometimes feels like Communism vs Capitalism. I love the idea of an Android phone, but the "Samsung bloat" and the rest terrify me. Conceptually I hate Apple's closed ecosystem but it's secure, they seem to take privacy very seriously, and it Just Works Really Well, almost all the time.


Wait, which one's communism and which one's capitalism in this scenario?


I'd assume that "capitalism" is meant to refer to Android, with its open competition among as many vendors as want to build hardware that can support the OS, while "communism" refers to iOS, whose ecosystem is by comparison strictly defined and controlled from the Supreme Soviet in Cupertino.

I don't think the comparison works, though, both because smartphone users are free to choose whether or not to participate in Apple's ecosystem, and because Apple's incentives are aligned with the desires of its current and potential customers in ways that those of communist regimes historically have not been.


An alternative perspective, only vaguely serious... "All Androids are Equal, but some are more Equal than others". [1] Android is open and free, and in theory, everyone cooperates, but in reality its just a cess pit of corruption. "Free" means "free to log your keypresses", "free to kill your battery" etc. And as with all good communist wonderlands, someone (Samsung) resents the ideals and is turning the place into a dictatorship. Whereas Capitalism is nothing without regulation (at minimum a police force). The iOS market is where commerce happens.

[1] http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6466-all-animals-are-equal-b...


The "Samsung bloat" is a thing of the past .. The new phones come with more restrained and thoughtful touches that enhances the phone.


No worries, they listened and they got your back https://www.xda-developers.com/samsungs-partnership-with-mca...

Want some mcafee with your s8? No? Well sucks being you...


Good job you install your own preferred flavour of android on it, then.


Custom ROM's are an unstable mess on most Android devices, Samsung being particularly notorious for poor developer support. Don't be surprised when 911 calls don't work [1] [2] [3] [4].

[1] http://www.androidcentral.com/cyanogenmod-team-dropping-supp...

[2] https://forum.xda-developers.com/note-3-tmobile/help/tmobile...

[3] https://plus.google.com/+CyanogenMod/posts/ePeEX2TRTYg

[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/cyanogenmod/comments/5lek7o/couldnt...


I don't care to compile my own, and I want a version I can trust; I want to be able to sue someone if it violates my privacy. What are my options?


Moto phones are pretty legit software-wise. Almost stock Android. They do have some very useful features however for what they offer (gestures and such).

They are owned by Lenovo though. Since ownership their OS updates have been much more regular. YMMV.


Well those first two points are completely contradictory so I won't even bother humouring the rest.


Pretty sure the bootloaders on branded devices are locked, are they not?


Not an issue I've ever had to deal with, I buy my phones, not get them on my contract.


The reason I switched to an iPhone from a Samsung S6 was that one day when I woke up I got a notification stating something like "We've installed you some microsoft apps". The same day I went to my local Apple store and bought an iPhone. What stops them doing this kind of things in the future?


Like Apple installing some U2 album on your iPhone?


Not dissimilar, but I wouldn't put them in the same league. U2 was added as a purchased album to iTunes accounts.


Right, unless you had auto-download of purchases explicitly enabled, nothing was pushed onto phones. And with the backlash it received, I doubt they'll ever do that again (they even stopped their 12 days of Christmas giveaways).


Non-executable content is really quite different from my perspective.


Defining "non-executable" is then an interesting exercise...

From https://scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/redux-comp...

> You’ve likely guessed it by now, but the Linux gstreamer media playback framework supports playback of SNES music files by…. emulating the SNES CPU and audio processor, courtesy of Game Music Emu. How cool is that?


I think the main difference (and I'm not saying Apple cannot do the same maybe at some point in the future) is between an app is downloading something inside that app and the OS is installing an app. A lot of app are connecting in the background to servers and downloading data without always asking permission. But in general the OS should not install something without asking explicitly.


To be fair didn't Apple stick a bunch of crappy music or something on everyone's phones and suffer quite the backlash?

I mean, I personally feel that it's likely they learnt from that but would not suggest it's not something they couldn't do again.

Edit: must not comment without refreshin page first


I don't understand the uproar about this. Giving away free music is vastly different then installing random apps in my opinion.


This is a rather empirical test, but it's the one that defines my view of smartphones at the moment.

Walking up to a demo Pixel in a retail store and flipping the menu slider opens the menu without a single dropped frame.

Walking up to a new S8 and dragging upwards opens the menu somewhat glitchily, with noticeable lag, and with a few dropped frames.

There weren't many dropped frames, and the lag was all but unnoticeable. I'd wager that a lot of people would never even notice the lag and glitchiness was there. But unfortunately my reactivity to smoothness becomes pathologically sensitive approaching the 95th percentile - so if something's hilariously horrible, I'll live with it, but if something drops a single frame, I don't want anything to do with it.

Sure, you can judge that as stupid, but the way my brain sees it, you either get sorted into the bucket of "you made no effort and you're terrible" and "ooooooooooooo." If you wind up on the edge of the bucket I get really bad uncanny valley. :/

(Another way to look at it is to say that if you put me on a moped that can't go beyond 60mph, I'll get used to it, but if you put me in an Autobahn simulator where traffic jams can abruptly appear beyond corners and then later on just as abruptly disappear... well... suffice to say I might start physically breaking things.)

I'll also acknowledge that I have absolutely no idea what was running on both phones - and that the Pixel's store demo mode had probably reset the phone and killall'd everything so it was nice and snappy.

But in my case that sells the Pixel to me hands down (I have no idea how responsive it actually is). Hey Samsung, implement a demo mode!

I am really looking forward to Fuschia. 120fps target? Yes please!!!


Backing you up as no idea why you're downvoted. Got an S8 yesterday and there is next to nothing on it. It comes with some MS apps preinstalled, a handful of Samsung apps (voice recorder, health, Bixby, Samsung's browser) .. and that is literally all the cruft I've encountered and it was all mostly avoidable.


In case anyone else is in this boat, the Moto Z is a pretty good third option. Not quite as pricey as the Pixel, (and the camera's not as amazing), but it's very close to stock Android.


I'm _still_ using a 2013 Moto X. I've been ready to upgrade for a couple years, but nothing matches the requirements of: decent specs, stock Android, and <= 5". Apparently all the NBA players quit and became high-end phone designers three years ago.

Every now and then I toy with the idea of getting the latest iPhone. Another year of this old thing and I might get fed up enough to switch.


2013 Moto X here, too. I recently replaced the battery and it's been great to get through a full day again, but I'm nervous about the day when this thing actually dies. I'm looking for something with those 3 requirements as well, and it's incredible how few options there are.


The Pixel 5" meets the requirements, but it's still out of stock and $750(!). Otherwise the iPhone (same price) is the only other stock-OS, decent spec, <= 5" phone I'm aware of.


I have pretty much the same requirements (Stock-OS, Decent Specs, Not Huge).

With no love for apple, I recommend (from personal experience) buying an iPhone SE.

Edit: I mention the SE specifically because it is not the same price. $400 vs $750


I got myself a G5 Plus, with amazing price\performance. The camera is not that nice, yes, but so was the camera of my now-barely-working Nexus 5.


> I had my 2013 Nexus 5 until it died, even after that one software update killed performance with no change in features.

I was in your same boat. I will only use the Google Android phones, and even they had random issues. Got an iPhone 7 plus and for the most part it just works. I do keep my software phone agnostic so I could switch back, so we'll see what the iPhone 8/next Pixel bring.


I am still using my Nexus 5 from 2013. Could I ask which specific software update killed performance if you can remember off the top of your head?


you know there is thing called custom ROMs right? every heard of CyanogenMod (aka Lineage OS now)? so much for problems with certain updates or Samsung bloat. there are also more brands than Pixel and Samsung


Yup. I've been an Android owner since the T-Mobile G1, then I had a Nexus One, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S4 and then Nexus 5. Especially on the Nexus One and Galaxy Nexus I was all about custom ROMs, but it becomes a several hour project to install custom ROMs and you often have to try more than one ROM to find the right one. I don't want more projects, so I just can't be bothered to mess with that anymore. I just want a stable phone.


Nexus 6P isn't even available in my country (Brazil) other than in Ebay-like places.

iPhones 5/6/7 on the other hand, are everywhere, even if they cost a kidney. Nobody outside bubble wants a Nexus 6P.

There are hundreds or thousands of fitness people making a living on Instagram, promoting healthy products mixed with booty shots. 99% percent of them have an iPhone as the only tool they need to do their job.


Yeah, while Google, Apple and formerly Motorola refuse to properly sell their phones we are enjoying hundreds of Chinese and Korean models, some of them even better than those phones from Default Country. Apple can bruteforce by brand image even through unofficial resellers but Google can't and don't want apparently.


So IOS share must be very strong in Brazilian markets: It's above 4%.

https//www.neowin.net/news/kantar-android-sales-up-in-most-markets-ios-down-in-china-windows-phone-sales-fall-again


No - everybody wants an iPhone. Everybody has an Android, which they probably paid 200 to 300 USD in 6 to 12 monthly parcels.

An iPhone 7 costs 3 to 4 monthly "minimum wages" (300 USD) here.

I was talking about trend setters, media people, higher class, and elites...


The interesting data would be the market share of iOS vs Android among only the people who can actually afford an iPhone


The only data I could find right now: devices used while searching for flights. Google translate with minor fixes:

"The savings continues to matter more than comfort, as indicated in the survey published in 2015. Economy class concentrates 96% of searches for flights performed on all platforms, while the executive account for 3%. (...) Regarding business class flights, the iPhone is the most used device, with 5.1%, followed by 2.7% via Desktop and 1.4% via Android."


Nexus 5X has exactly the same back camera, it takes pretty good pictures, software optimisation may have a lot to do with photo qualities as if you run LineageOS / CyanogenMod, you won't be getting as good photos for sure.

The problem with the Nexus 5X/6P is the poor build quality. While Pixel takes even better photos but the price? Execuse me, I am not going to pay AUD 1,296 for Pixel X 32GB (I got an iPhone 7 Plus 256GB for AUD 1,250 to replace the dead Nexus 5X for good).


Though guess Google's selling point on the smaller disk space is that it has unlimited cloud back-up for original quality photos & video.

Know you're locked in to their platform, but the ease of having photos/vids synced directly to Google Photos is quite nice with my Nexus 5, so feels like a big plus if I were to buy a Pixel and start shooting 4k video.

That said, still can't get over that high a price tag to go out & buy one.


Poor job communicating it? Saying that they had the best rated smartphone camera of all time was one of their main points during their Pixel ad campaign.


Pixel had an ad campaign?


They had a good ad campaign, but a terrible distribution program. My mom really wanted to get a Pixel, but the "only on Verizon" thing threw her, and she didn't know how to get one on AT&T.


Pixel???


Yeah, you remember, google's really fancy chromebook.


Ooh, no wait, their phone line, after they killed "Nexus" despite building a solid brand behind that for a few years. To call it the same thing that their original Chromebook was called was just insult to injury. Whoever manages their branding obviously has no idea what they're doing. See also: "Google Apps" is now G Suite. Why? This is their official answer, along with a table to reference for what all the new names are, along with this brilliant bit about the change: """ We created Google Apps to help people everywhere work and innovate together, so organizations can move faster and achieve more. On September 29, 2016, we introduced a new name that better reflects this mission: G Suite. """ https://support.google.com/a/answer/7126147?hl=en

Given their history, the next name (due in 2018) shall be "GCloud" or "Cloud by Google".


Pixel? That's their tablet, right? Nexus is for their audio device.


Nope, it was a Chromebook with the world's first 2560x1700 display AFAIK.

Yeah.


That amazing device with no internal storage thereby hampering its usage as a really great Linux device?

Such a waste :-(


You joke, but I am really confused what is the "official" Google phone and what is not.

First, there was the Nexus One by HTC, then Nexus S by Samsung, then Galaxy Nexus by Samsung (how is that different than Galaxy S* series?), a bunch in between that were no less confusing, and now there's a Pixel.

The Nexus branding seems to have been tied to the manufacturer, which only added to my confusion. I just want to know what is the Google sanctioned phone.

So yes, they didn't do a very good job at marketing their brand and setting it apart from the "clones".


The Nexus always were partnerships with manufacturers, but as far as I know everything that was called Nexus was an iteration of "the Google sanctioned phone"


I think the unifying feature of the Nexus line was that they all ran stock Android, or close to it. The Galaxy Nexus did, anyway.


Pixel by HTC


I think you overestimate the reach of their ad campaign.


Not in North America. We were inundated with Pixel ads on TV during the launch and well after.


Last time I checked in, there's a building sized Pixel ad visible from the 10 freeway in downtown Los Angeles.


The world's largest online add seller, doing billboard advertising. Speaks volumes.


TV? What's that?


That's not a good ad campaign. Every marketing campaign says they are the "best" or "highest rated" to some degree by finding some study or review that reinforces their marketing campaign. It's become noise at this point, even if it's true.


I just moved back to an iPhone after a year of 6P ownership on Fi and I gotta say I don't think the camera is nearly as good. My two qualms were low light performance and the time-to-shoot after tapping the shutter button. My 6P would take annoyingly long (presumably to focus/adjust?) before taking the first shot, but the iPhone is ready immediately. Overall I quite enjoyed 6P ownership but missed the ecosystem/handoff I had before.


[flagged]


Would you please not post uncivilly? We ban accounts that violate the site guidelines like this.


No idea what your first line means.


I wish Motorola surprised me with something like this for once... thats all.


It's only Apple who does neat stuff like this for their phones.


These bite-sized video that show the real UI are a great idea. It seems obvious now in retrospect for them to execute something like this - I know so many iPhone shooters that will love this resource.


Agreed. I've been taking photos with iPhone for as long as I can remember, and now have a 7+, and consider myself 'reasonably good' at using it to take photos, but watching these little snippets, I actually learned a few new things that I didn't know.

It's easy to become complacent about constant iOS upgrades. There are often lots of nifty little features that are probably too tedious to be explained in a lengthy update spec - But broken down into actual 'use cases' like this in incredibly useful and powerful.


Part of me really likes it, but part of me hates it. The visual is beautiful and elegant, but I find myself wanting to read the text while seeing the image.


I really hate the UI they used for this for the same reason as you. When I hover over an image I can't see what that image is about. I have the move the mouse away from what I want to focus on. That seems like poor design IMO.


Exactly. Too many people in software thing that "design" is the paint brush. They think design is CSS. It can be part of it, and certainly visual design deals with these things sometimes, but design is the way something works, NOT JUST HOW IT LOOKS. Something can be a fantastic design but text-based, or use grey forms and white text boxes. Great design helps users intuitively use software quickly and efficiently. Conversely, terrible design can look good. There are tons and tons of apps + sites these days which look cool / modern / fun while being absolutely awful to use. Some of them are almost on purpose, like Snapchat with hidden features that you'd have to discover by randomly swiping, tapping, holding, shaking, etc. Oversimplification can also be bad design. See: Google's recent phishing happening where the malicious authorized app appeared as "Google Docs" with a legit logo everywhere including in the "authorized apps" section in your account, with the actual publisher hidden in a small grey arrow drop-down menu item ( https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/05/google-docs-phish-w... ).


Well said, this is a visual puff piece, could the information have been conveyed more effectively using a single page magazine style layout, undoubtedly, that was not the brief, I imagine the designers were led to create something visually exciting that will show people how great their iPhone pictures can be.


I agree with your sentiment and am sad this got voted down.

I wouldn't mind https://eev.ee/blog/2016/02/20/twitters-missing-manual for Snapchat.


It's designed to be seen on an iPhone.


A+ and thank you for using an article, instead of saying "to be seen on iPhone" ... (like the marketing guidelines decree).


Not sure of the desktop design but worked just fine on my (i) phone.


Apple excels at this. I walk across an Apple store on my way to work everyday and on most mornings, I see a small group of people in the store getting trained on various things Apple. I see old people learning how to use an iPad. During the weekends, small kids learn how to use Apple products. I am an Android and Windows user and while these OSes offer lots of features, I wish the companies behind them put in more effort in promoting their product.


I've been an Android user since Nexus S (Android 2.3), Nexus 4, Nexus 5, all the way up to Nexus 5X (7.1.x).

The LG made Nexus 5X bricked (suddenly rebooted and never boots again) at 13 months old due to a known hardware fault, there is a lawsuit against LG in California https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/lg-bootloop-defe...

My Nexus 5 had power button issue (it automatically switch off, sigh...) Nexus 4 build quality was bad, too.

I lost 3-4 days worth of photos (was travelling and didn't backup). Luckily I was able to boot once (out of 40 attempt) after it bricked by giving it some heat (thermal issue). Backed up the photos before it quickly died again (there are videos on YouTube to fix the problem using heat gun), finally I decided I've had enough with crappy Nexus phones (I am fine with Android though). Pixel / Pixel XL is more expensive than iPhone 7 or plus, really cannot justify.

Finally I've moved to iOS again, after 6-7 years as I decided not to manually flash phone OS and root any more (I have my Arch Linux workstations and MBPs). My requirements for a phone comes down to: - Reliable hardware and high quality finish - Strong hardware based/accelerated encryption - Fingerprint recognition and authentication - Stable and Swift OS (greatly improved with APFS, regained faith in Apple) - Good camera - the best camera is the one with you - Long battery life (ideally support both fast charge and wireless charge)

The iPhone 7 Plus meets all. So far I've been on it for 2 weeks. iOS definitely has better attention to details and better UX at the cost of more control over the OS, a lot of apps on Android that doesn't support fingerprint authentication support that on iOS, I was surprised to find out.

The only complains are that 1. there is no HN client as good as Materialistic (let me know if you know any...) 2. no strongSwan native client (Gboard has introduced more language support so it's no longer a big concern). Other than that I am happy.


Anecdotally, I have a similar timeline of phones (Nexus 4, 5, 5x) except for the fact that they are all still running fine (the Nexus 4 now runs as a wifi-only portable music player paired to a bluetooth speaker).

My SO, on the other hand, has gone through 4 iPhones in the meantime and all either having to be replaced due to cracks in the glass' front/back or hardware issues.

That being said, I do like the general feeling of an iPhone in my hands, it feels well-built and that is what a lot of people are looking for. But as a hacker I could never own an iPhone. Whenever I've used my SO's phones over the years (iPhone 4s, 5 and now 6s) I've just been extremely frustrated with the piss-poor UX. It has definitely improved in the last 2-4 years due to 'borrowing' a lot from Android in terms of notifications and sharing data between apps but it simply does not even get close to the ease of use of Android (particularly in the 'doing things' department).

As an example of what I mean: a couple of years ago, if you wanted to upload a picture you were viewing to Dropbox (or anywhere really) you had to close the photo viewer, go to the app you wanted to share the picture with, find the picture you were looking at previously by browsing through the gallery again and then share the picture. Things like this have improved but the flow is still often quite cumbersome and I often run into similar hurdles when trying to perform very common tasks, I believe Instagram still opens up any location in Apple Maps without an option to choose an other map app for example. The notification screen, while better than it was before, is also awful compared to Android.


I agree with most of your points. I'll probably sell the Nexus 5 (running LineageOS 14.1 now) and get a Mi 6 as a backup phone.

I used to run AOSP (stock) and root because of the camera optimization. I found it frustrating when Google introduced monthly security update. It has become a burden (especially when the Nexus 5X randomly failed to boot - that was in fact a sign of the hardware issue, I didn't realize at that time). root didn't give me too much other than playing around in Termux plus GNU tools, Titanium backup, Greenify and ES File Explorer/Manager.

I wouldn't call myself hacker but I am a 15+ year Linux power user and veteran, I cannot live without root on a workstation/laptop. But I keep asking myself the question: do I really need root on a phone? My answer is no for now. I'd rather spend time with family or playing StarCraft: Brood War with friends than flushing the phone...).

Losing the Nexus 5X for 2 days made me reconsider the phone I really need, ended up with an iPhone 7 Plus (cannot justify to buy a Pixel XL...). Reliability, data integrity/security, automatic backup, quality of hardware (camera) matter a lot more.

I have iPad Air and iPad Pro at home so I've been witnessing iOS making progress, borrowing lots of Android design to improve UX. I'd say iOS 10.3.1 is a very good one, APFS definitely is a huge plus (it'll make macOS great again) while the equivalent for Android I don't see it coming.

BTW: All above is personal experience and opinion based on my use cases.


> do I really need root on a phone? My answer is no for now.

I very much agree on this point. I started on Android 1.5 (Samsung Galaxy) and back then and for the next several years you simply always had a better experience after rooting and putting a custom ROM on your phone. It was fun and exciting and empowering. Right now my Nexus 5x is not rooted (although the bootloader is unlocked, just in case) and running stock. I have not seen a valid reason to use a custom ROM since Android 5 and rooting, although useful in some cases (AdBlocking is a big one), is just not worth the effort anymore in my opinion.


I use the built in VPN client to connect to StrongSwan servers on a regular basis. It works just fine.


I like minihack better than materialistic.


iOS supports IKEv2 VPNs natively, no need for an app.


strongSwan for Android offers a lot more than just IKEv2.

- support for MOBIKE -> automatically reconnect when switching connectivity - importing JSON format VPN profiles via HTTPS - easy X509 certificate import - 1 click IKEv2 + RSA authentication with X509 authentication

I am yet to figure out how to best do IKEv2 + X509 authentication on iOS 10.3.1 and adjust strongSwan accordingly.


Minihack is great hn client


anecdotally i had in Malaysia noname Spice smartphone, never had hardware issue, then i had in China Amoi smartphone, never had hardware issue, then I had Lenovo, never had hardware issue, now I have more than year Xiaomi, no hardware issue

what exactly have these anecdotes to do with quality of Android smartphone and switching to iPhone?

also for that matter i use mobile phones 20 years, must have more than 20 of them (in 00s i used to have two phones at same time and switch them every year), guess how many got broken? zero


So _that's_ why they replaced my 5X out of warranty at no charge.


Huh. I did _not_ know that you could force touch and slide to manually adjust exposure.


It's not a force touch, just touch and slide.


You mean regular-touch, right? Or is there a second adjustment I don't know about?


I can do the same on my Pixel.


Thanks, didn't know I could do this on my Pixel. AE/AF lock is nice too.


Wow, these are really great tips for anybody thinking that their photography is a bit stagnant. Thumbs up to Apple for providing a simple, creative, and 60fps <3 videos that could be generalized to any camera.


I'm missing the "How to shoot one-handed at a concert"[0]. I'd love to have zoom not be a pinch only

[0] since my other hand is holding my drink


I believe the answer is "don't record at a concert because it annoys everyone else and the video is garbage anyway".


That'd be an amazing quip among this video. You start the video of 'how to shot with iPhone at a concert" and it just says "don't. Enjoy the show"


Weren't Apple researching techniques to disable recording during certain events?


They appear to have patented a method that's based on infrared emitters installed in the venue. See page 7: http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=09380225 - that seems to be only the drawings, not the full filing, but it's patent #9380225 if you want the full detail.

I'm not surprised that they have not implemented this. It would take about five minutes for someone to reverse-engineer one of the beamers, and then about five more for someone else to turn it into something you could hang off your keyring to mess with people, and about thirty seconds after that to produce a huge consumer backlash.


Yep, but would you ever buy a device with such a feature, even though you hate compulsive smartographers at concerts?


I sure hope not. That sounds sketchy.


I wish that bands would just film every concert they do and then offer all the concerts for (paid) download. This way a lot less people would actually try to film the concert because they now can get a much better quality.


> This way a lot less people would actually try to film the concert

Youtube is already full of good quality concert videos free of charge. People still film concerts. I don't know how to 'fix' this.


But I don't wanna see _a_ concert, I wanna see _my_ concert, e.g. the one I actually visited.


You could always put the phone away and actually watch the concert live, right?


have you ever, ever watched back a concert you've recorded ?


But why?


Phish does something similar to this, but only with audio. When you buy a ticket it gets you access to download the MP3s from the website.


even worse is the people recording with their phone to the side of their head, so they still get a perfect view, and you're stuck watching the bloody screen


I believe the answer is just search on Instagram or facebook for the event, a lot of other people posting the same crappy concert.



One possibility: shoot without zooming, go back afterward and crop, which is the same thing anyway.


The downside is that you'll be subject to compression artifacts, whereas digital zoom means you crop before any compression is applied.


The iPhone shoots in RAW, so it rrally shouldn't make a difference.


The iPhone can shoot in RAW; I don't think the built-in camera app supports it, but there are APIs available for third-party camera apps.


This is not true for the dual-camera 7 Plus. Though, initial reviews mentioned the second camera (at 2x optical zoom) was not quite as good as the primary camera (1x with OIS).

Whether a cropped 1x photo is better than using the 2x camera is beyond the scope of this comment.


In almost any case, the optical zoom is going to give a more detailed result than cropping an image from the stabilized wide-angle camera; that's not really a high enough zoom factor for stabilization to become an issue, except perhaps in the relatively narrow range of situations where there's enough environmental vibration to produce noticeable image degradation, but not so much that the stabilization motors can't compensate.

Admittedly, I'm basing this on my experience with a DSLR, rather than any hands-on time (which I haven't had) with an iPhone 7+. That said, since a lot of what I shoot is wildlife, I very frequently use a 70-300mm tele (on a DX body, so 1.5x crop factor and 105-450 35mm equivalent) that isn't stabilized, and it's really only beyond about 250mm (indicated) that I start to have shaky-hands trouble. Anything less than that, and there's not enough detail in the image for stabilization problems to be perceptible. Since the 7+'s tele camera, as best I can find, seems to have a 35mm equivalent focal length of about 56mm (thus 56-112mm, taking the 2x zoom into account), the lack of stabilization doesn't seem likely to pose too much of a problem.

(And if it is, you can always brace the camera and take multiple shots - this latter, in particular, I've found to be a pretty good workaround for the lack of stabilization in my own tele, and when an equivalent lens with VR costs half a grand, a pretty good workaround is nice to have! Generally I find that, taking about two exposures per second at full zoom, about one in every six is sharp enough to be a keeper. Something similar would probably work with an iPhone, if stabilization at full zoom proves to be an issue after all - and burst mode would work really well for this.)


On the 7 Plus, you can switch between 1x and 2x with a tap, no need to use two hands. :)


I believe the answer is "don't use digital zoom". If you've got a 7+ then you dot have either problem - there's a zoom button on the screen you can tap or drag, and there's a second camera with a zoomed view.


This may be one of the very few situations in which a perfectly practical, safe and sensible solution begins with 'Hold my beer'.


In jokingly cynical about a few of my friends using a pop socket and maybe they would help one handed shooting. Seems like how they function you could use one hand to hold and still pinch to zoom. Maybe?

https://www.popsockets.com

The Amazon reviews are surprisingly good.


Genuine question, assuming your not trolling, when was the last time you watched a concert video that you took?


I think a lot of those end up being shared on social media. I'm guessing not many are watched later.


Maybe not on the native photo app, but one that I regularly use (Camera+) has a slider next to the shutter button that can be used to zoom in out with one finger.


I have a cheap Android on which you can set the volume buttons to control zoom, seems like an iPhone would be able to do that too?


iPhone volume buttons are shutter buttons, you can't set them to zoom.


On the 7 plus you can zoom in and out with one hand by dragging the zoom icon left and right.


Maybe they'll follow that up with a series on how to text while driving


I love Portrait mode and have taken some photos with it that I am happy with, but really, it would be nice if they also showed us how they professionally lit that cafe, because you are never, ever going to take a photo that looks like that in the real world.


>because you are never, ever going to take a photo that looks like that in the real world.

You'd be surprised. You can take professionally looking photos (even with a phone or compact) at any kind of place. Instead of "professionally lighting" you can just make sure your subject sits on the side of a large window or other light source.

EDIT: Seeing their "portrait" video, it's actually all available light, as you can tell by the shine on the talent's forehead. Pro lighting would be much more diffused and not directed like that.


Has the edge detection gotten better? I tested it a couple months ago and for subjects with a sharp outline, the edges would have a weird fuzzy outline. More complex subjects seemed to work better:

https://imgur.com/a/ILM5p


That's the secret sauce that makes professional photographers professionals. 90% of the work is setting the lighting and composing the scene, and I know at least one pro photographer who doesn't let his clients snap photos with their iPhones while he works, precisely because it's not the camera that makes the photos beautiful but rather the setup.


I am just a happy advanced amateur photographer, but I wish I had been given a dollar each time someone complimented my Pentax dslr of taking great images. :D


The title made me think it was someone shooting an iPhone with a firearm...


Likewise, my scan was like this: "How to shoot [an] Iphone" -> (Apple.com) -> "ON!" (doh).


In case anyone is curious - these videos were shot in and around Cape Town, South Africa.


Is there a technology to.... say.... zoom-out more? For example, when you take a selfie, sometimes things are too close.. I wish I could 'somehow' zoom-out, but I wouldn't have a starting clue how that would be achieved.



Wow.

It's so infuriating when there's nothing I can download though. :(


You can buy wide angle lenses that clip onto the phone :)


I bought one on Amazon for $30 (brand is AUKEY) and used it with my iPhone on a recent hiking trip. You have to be careful of aligning it perfectly, but it's a huge help when photographing landscapes with a phone. You can capture a noticeable amount more of the scene.


Nothing happens when I click on any of the play buttons. Is anyone else having this problem? This isn't the first time an apple.com site didn't work correctly for me at all...

Do I have to be on a Mac or iPhone to view it or something?


It took a while to load on my phone (crowded spectrum, frequently crappy bandwidth) and nothing appeared to be happening until it did. Might be the same thing you're seeing.


Are you using a browser that doesn't support H.264, perhaps?


Just the normal version of Chrome. All plugins off yields the same result.


Running Chrome on Linux, videos play fine for me, they're just MP4 videos with HTML5 video controls.


Broken for me too. For me it might be because my laptop has a higher device pixel ratio.


That seems rather unlikely. Why do you think that would possibly affect video playback on a website?


The second line of the page "on iPhone 7" gets cut off on my laptop, and that's most likely DPR issue. Certainly possible for a button to become unpressable due to CSS issues around DPR.


Should be made more obvious that the actual useful content of the page needs to be scrolled down to. A more useful link (that scrolls to the content) to give friends family might be https://www.apple.com/iphone/photography-how-to/#section-car...


A lot of people have no idea you can take a photo with the volume buttons. I frequently see people struggling to take selfies with the touchscreen button.


I find it easier to take selfies with the onscreen button, as I can hold the phone from the bottom where i'm not likely to cover up the camera. It's awkward (with my hands and my 7+) to hold the phone in such a way that a) it's pointed at me, b) I have the volume buttons under a finger/thumb, and c) I'm not blocking the front camera in any way...


Funny how they still use the old iOS theme on their player's seek bar. It has been years since the introduction of new UI and I still find it suck. Look at the share button on "Edit selfie" video, it just feels like a toy design project of some students.


This is the behavior of all their custom players; I don't think they've updated them in a while.


Apple always comes up with great soundtracks to their ads/infomercials. Sometimes made by themselves/exclusively for them.

I wish they would give developers a royalty free library for our App demo videos.


If I'm not mistaken, the sound loops and jingles in Garageband are royalty free.


Anybody knows what's the genre of the music used in the videos?


I don't know what genre this is considered, but I used Shazam on the music in the videos, and the artist in most of them is "Electric Mantis". Found 'em on Spotify. Good tunes.


Thanks, didn't think about Shazam. Enjoying the artist right now.


Sounds like instrumental hip-hop. If you're on Spotify, check out the "Lush Vibes" mood playlist for similar.


Thank you Internet stranger!


You may even enjoy a subgenre in the same vein; chill-hop.


In "how to shoot a group portrait" (or all of them, honestly ;P), one of the steps should be "turn the damned camera 90° so everyone is actually in the frame".


For three people like in the demo video, if you rotate 90 you have to come in close to get a well framed shot and then their outfits aren't in the frame. Not important to everyone, but definitely important to some.


Seems like I don't have the option to choose portrait, nor do I have the option to change exposure, is this a guide for all iPhone 7's or just the iPhone 7 plus?!


Portrait mode is a feature that uses the dual-camera in the iPhone 7 Plus.

EDIT: Everything else in that guide should work on the normal iPhone 7. Most of the guides work with older iPhones too.


Frankly, I just learned about the exposure setting after watching those videos.

When you tap to focus on an item, the box should appear with a sun beside it, you can draw your finger up to increase the exposure, you'll see the sun move up in relation to the box.


This is amazing. I wish the selfie video would talk more about angles. My girlfriend tells me my angles are always wrong :/

Also, Google should do this for Pixel.


Hold the camera higher so you're looking up at it. Up-the-nose shots are most people's problem. It's really unflattering.


Spot on. Pixel has a better camera than iPhone 7/plus, but the marketing efforts are missing


I like that the action shot one has nothing to do with careful timing - just hold down the button and pick out a good photo later.


Could the two cameras be used to get 2 different perspectives, and therefore remove power lines or other imperfections?


No, not really. You will never get 100% coverage, meaning you'd have the synthesis the image. When you're doing that, you'll have better luck synthesising the removal the whole way.

Quick test: try using your own eyes, close one eye and then alternate, can you be really see through power lines / poles / whatever?


I did not know about burst mode!


OMG - I have been using burst mode forever, it's the only way to get decent shots of my kids! It does burn up storage fast, but at least the UI for saving and discarding pics from bursts is decent.


Shooting a panorama on iphone is neither easy nor intuitive. Unfortunately, they did not even explain that in these series.


Do you need a video to tell you to switch to the front facing camera to take a selfie?


Some people just never notice certain parts of UI. There are millions and millions of people with iPhones and there is likely going to be someone who just learned about the camera-switching icon for the first time.

Plus, that same video showed people that you can use the volume buttons as shutter buttons which is something most people likely don't know about.


it's not they don't notice, they don't care and don't use all the functionnality. They are quite stupid. (feel free to downvote me) but I think the same, "how to do simple" things is useless. If the user don't want learn something new, why they will see a video about it?


I agree with your sentiment, in the same way that people are described as stupid in here: https://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/misused.html

At the end of the day, UIs are unnatural interfaces. Skeumorphism only makes things worse. So UX design can only meet the user half way; intelligence must be employed to get the most out of an interface.

I see these videos as akin to using a TV remote instead of getting up to change the channel: people are lazy, so appeal to that laziness (along with the whole "here have some pro resources" thing as well) as a form of sales.

It's brilliant.


> Skeumorphism only makes things worse.

To unlock an iPhone you had to slide the lock, which is similar to how you'd open (old) doors. Isn't in this case skeumorphism helpful?


Very useful, I really liked that design. (If anything, I wish there had've been a little "notch" cut above the right edge, so that once you move the slider over and the top and bottom parts animate out the edges of the screen, it would look like the slider was moving through the notch. Hopefully that made sense. I do realize that such a visual design would have been just confusing enough that it would never have been approved, though.)

This is sort of what I was getting at - I just found this article, but it's quite balanced. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/11/...


I didn't know the story about social security cards. Thanks for sharing.


All vertical shots. Communicating to the masses. Market to the masses, live with he classes.


Look; I'm a long time Apple user and they have a great camera...But seriously; this is like their core thing for several years. They need to implement a rule that requires scaling performance and battery life at parity with camera improvements...


There was a time when Apple products were user friendly but now we need guides. They said technology would ease our lives. I'm disappointed with this shift at Apple where they want to look and sound cool rather than be useful.


I'm an Android guy, but a camera is not a photographer. It's not reasonable to expect it to make decisions about lighting, angle, composition, and so forth for you, no matter how high-tech it is. Those are things the user needs to know how to do.


Technology should take those decisions for you. Others like Google will show how to do that.


You want your phone to, what, grow legs and scuttle around to find the best angle and composition? You're not being reasonable.


Luckily I have a Google Pixel, the only thing I need to know to shoot a perfect photo, in fact an even better photo than an iPphone 7 could ever take, is:

1. Open Camera app

2. Take photo

It is really that simple, no jokes :)

Maybe I should create a website with these instructions.. mhh..


With that logic there whould be no need for Photographers or education in Photography either. Just get a good enough Camera you say?


Yeah? But this article is how to shoot decent photos on an iPhone 7. Not sure why you feel the need to mention that you have a Pixel, as it's not really adding anything to the conversation.


"Your photos are great! You must have a good camera."


My father thinks this. £10,000 of Nikon kit later it still looks like shit.


This was a bad comment. What keyboard did you make it on?


I've got a Pixel too, definitely a better camera than an iPhone 7, but not 7+.


This is a stellar example of marketing gone wrong by a company that's out of touch with a vast number of their customers https://phdify.com/essay-types. Yet it simply doesn't matter. Apple's massive revenue stream and its astronomical cash hoard makes them impervious to various failures here and there. It's great to be Apple




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