iPhone Is iOS 12 Bringing the Bokeh to iPhone X?

[theanimaster]

Just wondering -- I do not see any reason why the iPhone X would be incapable of TEH BOKEH on the Xs... so... is iOS12 bringing it or what?? I'd be pissed if Apple doesn't bring it ... and the only reason they wouldn't is to pressure people into upgrading their iPhone X just because they got fooked with the features, despite having pretty much identical hardware. The iPhone X has an even better camera than the XR-tard's.

We will see. Although I still don't feel like trading in my X for a Xs just because of nerfed software features. I'd rather keep my X for one more year (to pay it off) and then upgrade via T-Mobile's JUMP! and then give the X to my son.

After reading that the camera specs, hardware-wise are exactly the same... that just kind of made the decision not to upgrade even easier.

 

[rmt5034]

I vaguely remember hearing during the keynote that the bokeh feature would only be available on the iPhone XS, not the X.

 

[EugW]

X already has "Teh Bokeh". It just doesn't have adjustable bokeh, and it never will.

Honestly though, I don't have the X, but I have the 7 Plus, and I don't really care that much about the slider. It's a cool feature, but ultimately probably one I'd play with occasionally and then stop using.

Mind you, I'll reserve final judgement until after I try it on the XR we'll probably order.
[doublepost=1537155242][/doublepost]OTOH...

After reading that the camera specs, hardware-wise are exactly the same... that just kind of made the decision not to upgrade even easier.

Actually, for the camera specs, the XS is quite a significant jump over the X. The first big jump in many years in fact. The camera will get a bigger sensor, with 1.4 um pixels. The X has 1.22 um pixels. This should improve low light performance.

Of course, the Max gets this camera upgrade too, but what did surprise me is that even the XR gets the new camera (without the telephoto). You read that right: The $749 XR will have a better wide-angle lens sensor than the X, and will also get the bokeh slider.

 

[ssledoux]

Can someone please explain Bokeh. What in the actual hell is it?

 

[xxray]

Can someone please explain Bokeh. What in the actual hell is it?

It's basically the effect that makes the background blurred while making the subject in the photo standing out.

 

[EugW]

Can someone please explain Bokeh. What in the actual hell is it?

It's basically the effect that makes the background blurred while making the subject in the photo standing out.

Yeah, and until recently it was mostly limited to advanced amateurs and pros with pricey and bulky camera equipment.

To get a decent background blur in the past needed decent SLR lenses, but some lenses created bad looking bokeh. The most expensive lenses had very smooth bokeh and pleasing highlights in the background, with a shallow enough depth of field to make the subject stand out.

In contrast, phone cameras basically can't do this. The problem is their depth of field is so high that everything is always is relative focus. You might think having decent focus everywhere would be a good thing, but this is not the case. You don't want everything in the picture all the time. Sometimes you just want to have one subject be the centre of attention.

To deal with the fundamental problems with this with phone camera lenses, companies like Google and Apple now provide fake bokeh that uses calculations to determine what is the subject and what is background and then blur everything out in the background.

What the XS, XR, and Max bring to the table is a new slider feature that allows the user to adjust the amount of background blur.

 

[BugeyeSTI]

Just wondering -- I do not see any reason why the iPhone X would be incapable of TEH BOKEH on the Xs... so... is iOS12 bringing it or what?? I'd be pissed if Apple doesn't bring it ... and the only reason they wouldn't is to pressure people into upgrading their iPhone X just because they got fooked with the features, despite having pretty much identical hardware. The iPhone X has an even better camera than the XR-tard's.

We will see. Although I still don't feel like trading in my X for a Xs just because of nerfed software features. I'd rather keep my X for one more year (to pay it off) and then upgrade via T-Mobile's JUMP! and then give the X to my son.

After reading that the camera specs, hardware-wise are exactly the same... that just kind of made the decision not to upgrade even easier.

Get the app Focos, you get adjustable bokeh plus a ton of features to edit your photos not available on the native camera app

 

[EugW]

Get the app Focos, you get adjustable bokeh plus a ton of features to edit your photos not available on the native camera app

Yes, you can do this after the fact, but I find I end up not using these apps frequently. It's so much easier to have these types of features built into the native camera app.

I will look for that app for my camera app collection though.

 

[ssledoux]

Thanks for the explanations. I figured that was what it was (and I love portrait mode for that), but who in the world came up with that term for that?

 

[EugW]

Thanks for the explanations. I figured that was what it was (and I love portrait mode for that), but who in the world came up with that term for that?

The Japanese. It just means "blur". Strictly speaking it should be spelled "boke", but I guess if it is spelled that way, it would be mistakenly pronounced in such a way as to rhyme with "spoke".

 

[BugeyeSTI]

Yes, you can do this after the fact, but I find I end up not using these apps frequently. It's so much easier to have these types of features built into the native camera app.

I will look for that app for my camera app collection though.

It fun to use, I just started messing around with it one day and was astounded on how much control it gives you to tweak the photo. I use it all the time now..

 

[kasakka]

Thanks for the explanations. I figured that was what it was (and I love portrait mode for that), but who in the world came up with that term for that?

"The term comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means "blur" or "haze", or boke-aji (ボケ味), the "blur quality"." So basically the western world adopted it as a fancy sounding word for blur.

I think the feature gatekeeping Apple does should be discussed more. This is another example of something that could've easily been done on the X, maybe not in real time but as a post processing option after the picture is taken. They have done similar things in the past and while there was sometimes a technical reason behind it, usually there was another app or a jailbreak tweak demonstrating the same feature working just fine in terms of usability and performance on an older iOS device.

If iOS 13 brings split screen multitasking to iPhones you can bet your ass it will be limited to the XS Max even though there is no technical reason for that.

 

[EugW]

"The term comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means "blur" or "haze", or boke-aji (ボケ味), the "blur quality"." So basically the western world adopted it as a fancy sounding word for blur.

I think the feature gatekeeping Apple does should be discussed more. This is another example of something that could've easily been done on the X, maybe not in real time but as a post processing option after the picture is taken. They have done similar things in the past and while there was sometimes a technical reason behind it, usually there was another app or a jailbreak tweak demonstrating the same feature working just fine in terms of usability and performance on an older iOS device.

If iOS 13 brings split screen multitasking to iPhones you can bet your ass it will be limited to the XS Max even though there is no technical reason for that.

Yes, feature rationing.

The stupidest one for me is the lack of Zoomed Display mode on both the X and XS. Stupid because it has been supported ever since the iPhone 6. I guess even more insulting to some would be that it will be supported on the much cheaper XR.

There is basically no reason at all not to support it on the X/XS, except for marketing reasons.

 

[DigitalDash]

The halide camera app on the App Store has a slider to adjust the effect before and after as well using the iPhone X camera system but we’ll have to see how they compare side-by-side. Even the Xr has the Bokeh effect feature but that is mostly done by the software

 

[Kram Sacul]

Fake blur that can be done better in Photoshop. No big loss.

 

[Fortimir]

Fake blur that can be done better in Photoshop. No big loss.

Better, but not cheaper, easier, or faster. You're being pedantic if you are even pretending that advanced masking and layer manipulation is practical for any significant portion of Apple's user base. The whole point of having it on your phone is that it's fast and easy.

 

[ke-iron]

Sure Apple could update the iPhone X to have the adjustable bokeh, while I’m sure it will look great. It still won’t look as good as on the newer iPhones, because the newer iPhones cameras are noticeably better.

 

[AppleHaterLover]

Sure Apple could update the iPhone X to have the adjustable bokeh, while I’m sure it will look great. It still won’t look as good as on the newer iPhones, because the newer iPhones cameras are noticeably better.

iPhones 3GS and 4 didn’t get Siri. iPhone 7 Plus didn’t get Bokeh. And so on and so forth.

Apple doesn’t give features for free, even if the hardware is technically capable of supporting them, if they can use them to differentiate old and new devices.

 

[ke-iron]

iPhones 3GS and 4 didn’t get Siri. iPhone 7 Plus didn’t get Bokeh. And so on and so forth.

Apple doesn’t give features for free, even if the hardware is technically capable of supporting them, if they can use them to differentiate old and new devices.

I’m only implying it’s possible not that they will do it.

 

[EugW]

Sure Apple could update the iPhone X to have the adjustable bokeh, while I’m sure it will look great. It still won’t look as good as on the newer iPhones, because the newer iPhones cameras are noticeably better.

It would likely look totally fine with the X camera.

By the way, Apple advertises 3 effects for Portrait mode on the XR and 5 effects on the XS and XS Max. However, post keynote previews show the XR working with all 5 modes with its prerelease iOS version. I suspect once the XR actually is officially released, it will only have 3 modes.

This is mostly not about hardware support. This is about artificial segmentation decisions made by their marketing department.

Personally I don’t care much though. The only portrait mode I want is natural, and while the adjustable bokeh is nice, it’s not a make-or-break feature IMO. As for the camera, the bigger sensor is a big deal, but the hyper aggressive noise reduction Apple is increasingly utilizing is a downer.

 

[Dave-Z]

post keynote previews show the XR working with all 5 modes with its prerelease iOS version. I suspect once the XR actually is officially released, it will only have 3 modes.

I think this depends. If you're using the front-facing camera, is has all the Face ID tech there to enable all modes. The rear camera does not have any of that and would actually need to rely exclusively on software for the effects.

I do not know for sure, I'm assuming.

 

[TheSkywalker77]

Did you not take into consideration that maybe the iPhone X doesn’t have the hardware to manually control the bokeh? Like how the iPhone 7 doesn’t have the hardware to get a True Tone display? Or how the iPhone 6 doesn’t have the hardware to get raise to wake?