iOS 5 will bring a lot of new features for photograpahers
IOS 5 adds plenty of new features to the iPhone, but one group of users who will be particularly happy with the new operating system will be photographers. The most obvious feature is the update to the camera app itself, but there are lots of other tweaks which will make things a lot easier.
First, the camera application. The headline feature is that you can now use the volume switch to fire the shutter. This is a lot easier than tapping an on-screen button. Ironically, a third-party app which enabled this — Camera + — was booted out of the App Store in August last year.
You also get auto-focus and auto-exposure lock. A long press on the screen will set both and then lock them to that subject. This lets you recompose and shoot without those values changing. And pinching will now let you zoom in and out. It's a digital zoom, but still — most of our photos end up on Instagram anyway.
IOS 5 is designed to let you use an iPhone or iPad without a parent computer. This carries over to the Camera app, which now offers basic image processing. Users can remove redeye, crop and enhance photos. It's no Photogene, but it's certainly a handy quick fix for casual snapshooters.
This independence carries over to the Photos app, too. Now you can arrange images into a folder on the device itself. Previously this was done within iPhoto on the Mac, which was frankly a pain.
Another feature, which may cause lost sales to developers of alternative camera apps is shooting direct from the lock screen. When the phone is locked, double-tap the home button and a camera icon will appear. This will take you to a restricted version of the Camera app, allowing you to snap pictures but denying access to photos already taken (including the ones you just took).
This is a nice way to allow quick access to the camera without compromising security. Just don't leave you phone lying around at parties or you'll be sure to end up with photos of somebody's junk.
The thing I'm most excited about, though, is Photo Stream. this uses Apple's new push/sync iCloud service to send photos automatically between devices. Snap a pic on your iPhone and it appears magically on your iPad and your computer. The last 1,000 images are kept on iOS devices, and of course everything is stored on the Mac or PC. This might convince me to finally buy an iPhone.
I wonder if Apple will open this up to third parties. Imagine if the wireless Eye-Fi SD cards could use Photo Stream. You'd be able to take pictures on your regular camera and they'd immediately be backed up and sent to all your devices.
Finally, a kind of related point: The LED flash on the iPhone 4 is now open for developers to abuse. Apple itself now lets you set the lamp to flash as an alert for messages or calls. Who knows what other annoying uses it can be put to?
Who knows what changes will come between now and the public release o iOS 5 this fall. One thing's for sure, though — taking photos on the iPhone is about to get a whole lot more fun.
iOS 5 product page [Apple]
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