At its WWDC keynote yesterday, Apple announced a whole freighter full of updates coming to iOS 8. Perhaps the most exciting announcement of all was that users will soon have full manual control of the iPhone camera. Apple is opening up all the camera controls to third-party apps, with everything from white balance, focus, and every exposure setting. In the future, that means that photo apps on iOS 8 will be able to control settings such as aperture, shutter-speed and more.
Currently apps on iOS 7, and those system versions before it, have only had access to flash control, HDR modes, and ISO. Now that apps will be able to take the camera off full auto, apps like Camera+ could allow users to take long exposures, keep the lens wide open at f2.2 for more bokehlicious photos, etc. What’s more, Apple is seriously buffing up its own built-in image editor to let iPhone shooters adjusts exposure, brightness, contrast, and more.
Read about even more iOS 8 enhancements after the break.
Apple is also adding even more access to third party apps after the exposure is said and done. A newly developed PhotoKit will allow third-party apps to access images inside the iOS camera roll without having to import them separately. Hopefully, this will make working with images across apps less of a hassle. Rather than having multiple versions of the same photo, edits will now be completely non-destructive and saved to a single copy.
Another new feature Apple has introduced is called Extensibility, which opens up iOS 8 to use third-party filters and effects without ever having to leave the built-in camera roll app. For example, you’ll be able to pick an image in the camera roll and then apply a VSCO Cam filter or change it into a water color painting using Waterlogue – all from one menu without having to jump between apps.
iOS 8 is turning out to be quite the photographer friendly mobile operating system. Sadly, it will only be developers first, so look for it to drop sometime this fall.
Via PetaPixel
