Halide shows the iPhone SE uses machine learning to shoot portrait photos
What you need to know
- Halide has gone in-depth on the new iPhone SE camera.
- The company details how Portrait Mode is possible with machine learning.
- It also compares photos between the iPhone SE and iPhone 11 Pro.
Halide, the company behind the popular camera app for iPhone, has gone in-depth in its tests with the new iPhone SE and how its camera stacks up against the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro.
In a blog post posted to Medium, the company has gone deep into how the new iPhone SE accomplishes its Portrait Mode photographs with software.
While some may point out that the iPhone XR can also shoot in Portrait Mode with a single camera, Halide notes that the XR's sensor had focus pixels that enabled this feature through hardware. The iPhone SE, in comparison, is generating a portrait photo entirely through machine learning.
Currently, Apple is saying that its Portrait Mode on the iPhone SE only works with people. Halide chalks this up to Apple's strategy to "under-promise and over-deliver."
The exciting thing about this is that, as Apple's machine learning improves, Portrait Mode could become available for more and more subjects for a single camera. If you want to see all of the comparisons between Portrait Mode on the iPhone SE and the iPhone 11 Pro, check out Halide's blog post.
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Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.