The recent rush of leaks around the new iPhone handsets have given us a good idea on what to expect. The latest leak reflects well on the advanced camera software expected to feature in the iPhone 11 family when they are launched next month.
And the leak comes from an impeccable source… Apple.
Earlier this week Apple released a point update to the beta of iOS 13. Tucked away inside the code of iOS 13.1 are some notes regarding the video encoding software. The new version of the iOS operating system will support encoding HEVC videos with an alpha channel, as PhoneArena reports:
For some reason, a few weeks before it releases the iPhone 11 and iOS 13 officially, and with iPhone XR/XS waiting on the update, Apple outed an iOS 13.1 beta in its software developers channel.
…The idea is to probably release iOS 13 together with the 2019 iPhones, and immediately follow up with the bug fixes and the features that made the cut in iOS 13.1 shortly thereafter. Among numerous other smallish fixes and options in the 13.1 beta, one has caught a particular developer attention.
The alpha layer is an additional layer of information in the video that allows areas of a frame to be marked as invisible, transparent, or lifted out of the frame for effects work. No doubt the stereoscopic ability to calculate the depth of different objects in the field of view will be used to lift out elements that are wanted and elements that are not wanted.
We’ve already seen this principle at work with the ability to add studio-quality lighting effects in Portrait mode after you have taken the picture – the software knows which elements are in the foreground and which are in the background and can digitally light them as required. Including an alpha layer allows you to replace an element in the image with a separate image – perhaps from another image or a new digitally generated image.
Adding it to video output is going to open up a world of possibilities, from those who shoot ‘feature-length’ films on the iPhone, through the vast army of YouTubers and streamers, through to the imaginative filters for social media apps and the fun they can have swapping in backgrounds.
In short, the new iPhone is going to have a travelling matte in your pocket, and there’s every chance that this will allow you to add better special effects, polished backgrounds, and other elements to your videos in real time.
Although the iPhone 11 family is expected to have a larger battery, faster processor, and a more robust construction compared to previous iPhones, these still fail to achieve parity with Android handsets. For the iPhone 11 to succeed it needs to be seen as more than a point update, and that needs to happen in software. Expect Apple’s travelling matte to be given a strong position in the running order when the the handsets are revealed on September 10th.
