“On Thursday, US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that revealed that future iDevices may in fact sport an advanced version of their current iOS feature known as ‘Tap to Focus,'” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.
“According to the patent application, Apple could add an additional dedicated processor to their architecture supporting the newly advanced multi-point gesturing,” Purcher reports. “The feature will add other new functionality such expanding a given area of a photo for added emphasis.”
Purcher reports, “For the camera buffs amongst us, I think this may be a very cool feature in a future iPhone model.”
Much more, including APple’s patent application illustrations, in the full article here.
Apple is rapidly adding new camera features almost every upgrade to their iPhone. No one knows when this particular feature will arrive, but I believe it could come our way over the next 18 months or so. They already have tap to focus, so it’s really an update to an older feature. That’s why I think it will fly.
This feature will allow iPhone users to determin what objects will be in focus. (control depth of field)
This is probably a hint that apple will not only be providing higher quality images but more importantly a larger sensor. Currently the depth of field in these cameras is very high because of the small size of the sensor. The larger the sensor you have the more shallow the depth of field, thus you may need these special tools to determin what you want in focus.