The new iPhone 12 pro and the max pro comes with the new lidar sensor. Lidar isn’t new tech. It’s used in many cars now for backup sensors and the other range sensing features, and the 2021 iPad pro has had one since March. But since apple put them on the iPhone pro models. You must be wondering or might be curious as to what lidar does and how you can take advantage of it. For those who don’t know, lidar stands for light detection and ranging, and it’s a sensor that emits light through rapidly firing lasers that reflect off nearby objects. When that light bounces off an object and returns to the sensor, the time it takes the light to return to the sensor is recorded and extrapolate accurate measurement data.
It’s very similar to how the face id works on the phone’s front, except it’s effective at a much larger range. One of the advantages of the new lidar sensor is that portrait mode photos should be much more accurate, and it’s why Apple is now letting us take portrait mode photos with night mode on the 12 pros. The lidar sensor emits it’s own light to measure distance even when there isn’t much light around. The quality of the photo is still limited to how good the image sensor and image processing software is though, The lighter sensor can help with those portrait mode photos but isn’t going to improve the overall image quality of your shots. It will improve the auto speed and accuracy in both photos and video though apple is claiming that the 12 pro and pro max have up to six times faster autofocus in low light because of that inclusion of the lidar sensor.
Another great use for the sensor is to accurately measure the size of objects with the measure app pre-installed on the phone. The sensor has a limited range of about five meters or so, So you need to be fairly close to the object to take advantage of lidar. It seems a lot more accurate than the measure app on previous iPhones without lidar, The measure app gets pretty darn close to what I was getting with the tape measure. It’ll also attempt to map out objects that are squares and rectangles in shape and then give you all of the measurements for all sides at once.
The app can now measure your height, too; you need a tripod or a friend or a friend to help you. It would help if you stood next to a wall with your full body in view, and the app will attempt to measure your height accurately. The sensor is also going to help out with apps that run on apple’s AR kit. The Lidar sensors make AR objects much more stable on the ground. It does kill the battery pretty quickly in the 12 pros, but that’s to be expected when it’s using the camera and lidar sensor to show and track the environment and a heavy processing from the A14 bionic to render the game in that environment.
It’s very similar to how the face id works on the phone’s front, except it’s effective at a much larger range. One of the advantages of the new lidar sensor is that portrait mode photos should be much more accurate, and it’s why Apple is now letting us take portrait mode photos with night mode on the 12 pros. The lidar sensor emits it’s own light to measure distance even when there isn’t much light around. The quality of the photo is still limited to how good the image sensor and image processing software is though, The lighter sensor can help with those portrait mode photos but isn’t going to improve the overall image quality of your shots. It will improve the auto speed and accuracy in both photos and video though apple is claiming that the 12 pro and pro max have up to six times faster autofocus in low light because of that inclusion of the lidar sensor.
Another great use for the sensor is to accurately measure the size of objects with the measure app pre-installed on the phone. The sensor has a limited range of about five meters or so, So you need to be fairly close to the object to take advantage of lidar. It seems a lot more accurate than the measure app on previous iPhones without lidar, The measure app gets pretty darn close to what I was getting with the tape measure. It’ll also attempt to map out objects that are squares and rectangles in shape and then give you all of the measurements for all sides at once.
The app can now measure your height, too; you need a tripod or a friend or a friend to help you. It would help if you stood next to a wall with your full body in view, and the app will attempt to measure your height accurately. The sensor is also going to help out with apps that run on apple’s AR kit. The Lidar sensors make AR objects much more stable on the ground. It does kill the battery pretty quickly in the 12 pros, but that’s to be expected when it’s using the camera and lidar sensor to show and track the environment and a heavy processing from the A14 bionic to render the game in that environment.