Camo now lets you use your iPhone as a Mac webcam in Safari, FaceTime, and more

News
By
published
Camo Studio Dark Mode
Camo Studio Dark Mode (Image credit: Reincubate)

What you need to know

  • Camo 1.6 now supports using your iPhone as a Mac webcam for FaceTime and other apps that weren't previously supported.
  • The people behind Camo and developers at Apple worked together to make this new update work with FaceTime, QuickTime, Safari, and more.
  • You'll need macOS 12.3 installed to use the new capabilities.

Camo has long been the go-to app for turning an iPhone into a high-quality webcam, but it didn't work with some important apps and services, including FaceTime. With the new Camo 1.6 update, that's all changing.

Now available for download, Camp 1.6 adds support for FaceTime, QuickTime, Safari, and more for the first time. That means you can ditch that crappy Studio Display camera and use an old iPhone instead!

Today we're thrilled to launch a long-awaited feature in Camo: full compatibility with Safari, FaceTime, QuickTime, and more. As well as adding support for all of Apple's apps on modern versions of macOS, this update also enables all third-party apps that previously relied on Camo's integrations to work natively. Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, and others now run great with Camo without modification.

You can read more about the new release in the announcement blog post but it's worth noting that you'll need the latest version of Camo and to be running macOS 12.3 for this new functionality to work. Notably, that blog post also points out that this was only made possible with the help of Apple's developers and two years of hard work. Who said making apps was easy?

This change comes as a consequence of two years of conversation with Apple on how we can make the most of the incredible cameras in their devices. This wasn't the feature we originally intended to ship as part of Camo 1.6, but once we heard the good news from Apple we rearranged our launch schedule to make this happen. Thank you, team Apple! ❤️

Those who already have Camo installed can get the updated version now. Everyone else can head over to the developer's website to get in on the act. There's a free and paid version available with the latter unlocking all features and removing the watermark from video.

With this Camo update, it's all official — Your iPhone is the best Mac webcam you already own!

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.