Apple’s newest iPhone camera feature has split opinion among photographers, technology writers and industry insiders since its unveiling in San Francisco, with some calling it a meaningful step forward in mobile photography and others dismissing it as little more than a dressed-up video clip.
Live Photos, introduced as part of the iPhone 6s launch, works by recording a brief moment of movement immediately before and after a still image is taken. The result is a picture that appears to come to life when held down with a long press, showing the subject in motion rather than frozen in a single frame. Apple has positioned the feature as a way of capturing the spirit of a moment that a conventional photograph can sometimes fail to convey.
The iPhone 6s also arrives with a upgraded 12-megapixel camera sensor, improved flash, 4K video recording and a new touch-sensitive display — but it is Live Photos that has generated the most debate since the announcement.
TechCrunch editor in chief Matthew Panzarino offered one of the more detailed technical explanations of how the feature actually functions. Rather than capturing a series of separate images, the phone continuously buffers footage while the camera is open, and when the shutter is pressed it compiles the surrounding data into a short motion file. The finished product takes up roughly the same storage space as two standard 12-megapixel photographs.
Travel photographer Austin Mann, whose work featured in Apple’s Shot on iPhone 6 advertising campaign, welcomed the addition as another creative tool for building a more personal connection between subject and viewer, suggesting it could change the way people share experiences on social media.
However, critics were quick to point out that the concept is not new. HTC’s Zoe feature and various app-based tools including Cinemagraphs, Flixel and GIF formats have offered similar functionality for some time. Writer Kyle Wagner described Live Photos bluntly as compressed video, questioning whether the engineering effort involved was justified.
Photographer Casey Berner acknowledged the feature is neither groundbreaking nor original, but said Apple’s ability to bring mainstream attention to emerging trends — as it did with fingerprint recognition and the shift away from optical drives — could give Live Photos a relevance that previous similar products never achieved. He noted, however, that the feature currently only functions fully within Apple’s own ecosystem, limiting its reach unless platforms such as Facebook move to support it.
Radu Rusu, co-founder of motion photography startup Fyusion, took a broader view, arguing that any move by a company of Apple’s scale to push beyond traditional two-dimensional imaging helps advance the entire field. His own app, Fyuse, allows users to capture motion around a subject and share it without requiring recipients to download additional software.
Rusu said the fundamental frustration Live Photos is attempting to solve — the feeling that a still image has missed the real moment — is one that photographers and everyday users have long experienced, and that technology sitting between a photograph and a video has genuine long-term potential for editorial, advertising and personal use alike.
Whether Live Photos proves to be a lasting shift in how people document their lives or quietly fades into the background of iPhone settings remains to be seen, but Apple’s endorsement has ensured the conversation around motion photography is louder than it has ever been.
