- iPhone 15 Pro can capture 3D spatial media for viewing on Vision Pro headphones.
- iPhone Live Photos have made old memories come alive.
- We may end up putting everything on Instagram.
iPhone 15 Pro can capture immersive 3D pictures and videos and play them on the Vision Pro AR headset. It will change your life—but not temporarily.
If you're an iPhone user, you probably know and love Live Photos, which captures a video clip and uses it with each photo, including sound. These have been around since the iPhone 6S in 2015, so you might have live photos of friends and other loved ones from eight years ago. They jog your memory better than ordinary static images, allowing you to see that person's movements and sounds even years later. This will become even more real with new space photo and video features.
"Live Photos on iPhone not only captures images for me, it captures moments ," Maxwell Bentley, video producer and founder of Bentley Media, told Lifewire via email. “I love scrolling back and watching short video clips of taking a photo with my fiancée and hearing her giggle, a beautiful sunset over the Atlanta skyline, or a highlight reel from a vacation. I’m excited that the Space Video feature on iPhone 15 will take this a step further ”
If you're familiar with Live Photos, try this thought experiment. Think back to something you remember from many, many years ago. This could be the early toddler years before your child learns how to open the pan drawer in the kitchen. It could be your own childhood, or a picture of your first boyfriend, or a home you once loved but no longer exists.
What if you had live photos from that era? Wouldn’t it be great to be able to see these guys move? Hear their voices again? For those young enough, capturing their early memories in this format does just that.
You already know where this is going. Now, imagine that these memories can be experienced in three dimensions. You're wearing Apple Vision Pro headphones, and you're sitting on the floor next to you like a kid. This could be a static 3D photo that you can view from different angles, or it could be a 3D space video. Seriously, imagine reliving past moments like this. This is really exciting.
"As technology advances, immersive media like the Apple Vision Pro promises to take our memories to the next level, transporting us back to those moments. Whether this becomes the killer feature of the iPhone Vision Pro comes down to personal preference , but the potential for these innovations is to significantly enrich our connection to memory," graphic designer and technology expert Sanef Safwan told Lifewire via email.
At the Vision Pro event, Apple made a rare PR gaffe by showing a father using the 3D camera in his headphones to film his daughters playing together. The internet said it was creepy because the heterotopic headdress separated the father from his children.
We all know that parents who are engrossed in their phones tend to be more focused in the present, which is why it's great that the iPhone 15 Pro now supports capturing spatial video and audio. You won't be able to get a true 3D experience until the Vision Pro goes on sale at some point in the future, but what does $3,500 mean to your memories?
Not only is capturing from your phone more convenient, it also raises the question of what else you can do with these captures. An almost inevitable possibility is that we will post them on social media.
“It will be more immersive to relive past memories. It will also be interesting to see how it changes the experience on video sharing apps like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc. I’m even more excited about this! Imagine watching your favorite photography shoot I watched the teacher’s hiking video to really experience the feeling of being on the top of the mountain,” travel Instagrammer and fashion brand founder Asmita Kunwar enthusiastically told Lifewire via email.
The Vision Pro may or may not be a success, and it may or may not eventually come down to a price we can afford. But if you buy the new iPhone 15 Pro, you should definitely start capturing some spatial memories. You know, just in case. Think of it as a really nice gift to your future self.
