iOS 8 to Expand Manual Controls for iPhone Photographers

Apple is working to open up camera controls in iOS 8, giving photographers granular control over settings such as ISO, shutter speed, and more, reports AnandTech. While only a few manual controls will make it into the stock camera app, almost full manual control will be made available for third-party app developers to implement as of iOS 8.

ios-8-camera-photos
According to AnandTech, iOS 8's AVCaptureDevice APIs will let developers tap into advanced controls such as ISO, shutter speed, focus, white balance, exposure bias, EV bracketing, and shutter speed/ISO bracketing. The ability to manipulate these controls will provide photographers with new ways to creatively compose a shot or a video clip. Developers also can use these controls to offer a variety of camera presets and other behind-the-scenes algorithms that manipulate images during the capture process.

While only the exposure bias controls will make it into the stock camera application, all of these new controls exposed through the AVCaptureDevice APIs will enable camera applications similar to Nokia's Pro Camera or HTC's Sense 6 camera application. It's been said that Apple is one of the few OEMs that take camera seriously, and these new controls can only cement that position.

Apple has steadily boosted camera performance in its iPhone models by improving both the hardware and software that powers this feature. As a result, the iPhone is known for its exceptional camera performance and has been among the most popular cameras on Yahoo's image hosting service Flickr.

The next-generation iPhone 6 is expected to continue this trend with iOS 8 camera improvements such as time-lapse mode as well as new iPhone camera hardware that may include optical or electronic image stabilization, a wider aperture, as well as an ARTON filter to minimize CMOS color shifts.

Related Forums: iOS 8, iPhone

Popular Stories

iphone air thickness

Apple Said to Cut iPhone Air Production Amid Underwhelming Sales

Friday October 17, 2025 8:29 am PDT by
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec). The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
maxresdefault

Here's Everything Apple Announced Today

Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below. MacBook Pro M5...
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

New 14-Inch MacBook Pro Has Two Key Upgrades Beyond the M5 Chip

Thursday October 16, 2025 8:31 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with an M5 chip, and there are two key storage-related upgrades beyond that chip bump. First, Apple says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 2× faster SSD performance than the equivalent previous-generation model, so read and write speeds should get a significant boost. Apple says it is using "the latest storage technology," ...
iOS 26

iOS 26.0.2 Update for iPhones Coming Soon

Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet. The update will likely be released by the end of next week. Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

Apple Debuts New iPad Pro With M5 Chip, Faster Charging, and More

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips. The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
M5 MacBook Pro

Apple Announces New 14-Inch MacBook Pro With M5 Chip

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models. In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB. Like...
iOS 26 Feature

iOS 26.1 to iOS 26.4 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Saturday October 18, 2025 11:00 am PDT by
iOS 26 was released last month, but the software train never stops, and iOS 26.1 beta testing is already underway. So far, iOS 26.1 makes both Apple Intelligence and Live Translation on compatible AirPods available in additional languages, and it includes some other minor changes across the Apple Music, Calendar, Photos, Clock, and Safari apps. More features and changes will follow in future ...
m4 macbook air blue

M5 MacBook Air Coming Spring 2026 With M5 Mac Studio and Mac Mini in Development

Thursday October 16, 2025 3:57 pm PDT by
Apple plans to launch MacBook Air models equipped with the new M5 chip in spring 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is also working on M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models that will come early in the year. Neither the MacBook Pro models nor the MacBook Air models are expected to get design changes, with Apple focusing on simple chip upgrades. In the case of the MacBook Pro, a m...

Top Rated Comments

Orlandoech Avatar
148 months ago
Please give us a raw files mode. Nokia promised it, and then never delivered. It'd be such a nice option.

Imagine if you had an 8GB iPhone lol... #FAIL
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
HurtinMinorKey Avatar
148 months ago
Please give us a raw files mode. Nokia promised it, and then never delivered. It'd be such a nice option.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ThatGuyInLa Avatar
148 months ago
I would simply like for iOS to stop scaling the image down by half when you add a filter effect, then save, using the native photo editor!!!!!!
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PoppaKap Avatar
148 months ago
Why not create a full manual setting within the Camera App? Why just leave this ability for third party Apps?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
w00master Avatar
148 months ago
Yeah, but when you're done editing it, you compress it. The RAW file is only temporary for while you edit it...
From a camera that can generate RAWs, IMHO RAW files aren't temporary. They should be treated as your originals. The analogy to the film days is a negative. Just like in film (you want to keep your negatives), in digital you definitely want to keep your RAWs. You never know.

JPGs/Other compressions are used to share with. Those can *always* be generated on the fly.

w00master
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
IscariotJ Avatar
148 months ago
Please give us a raw files mode. Nokia promised it, and then never delivered. It'd be such a nice option.

They did (http://conversations.nokia.com/2013/11/20/nokia-camera-raw-dng-support-available-now/). What they didn't do, was make it especially easy to get the damn things off the phone ( only jpegs auto sync )....

Would love for iOS to have this option....
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)