Apple's Live Photos Take Up About 2x Space of Normal Images

One of the novel new features coming in the iPhone 6s is the new Live Photos feature which captures an additional 3 seconds of video surrounding photos on the new iPhones. The new feature is on by default and allows you to take photos as usual. Apple describes it:

A still photo captures an instant frozen in time. With Live Photos, you can turn those instants into unforgettable living memories. At the heart of a Live Photo is a beautiful 12‑megapixel photo. But together with that photo are the moments just before and after it was taken, captured with movement and sound

Live Photos will be viewable on existing iPhones, iPads, Macs and Apple Watch devices with the latest operating systems. Apple is also opening up the API for developers to support the new format in their own apps. Facebook has already committed to supporting Live Photos in their iOS app later this year.


While few details about the new image format has been released, TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino reveals in a video that the new format will take up approximate twice the space of a normal 12MP photo. Panzarino describes that even the current iPhones start taking photos the moment the Camera app is launched, and that traditionally, only the last photo the moment the shutter is pressed is stored. The new system will simply take the surrounding photos and compress them into this new format.

Meanwhile, @DanMatte reveals that the new Live Photos format is a bundle of images based on the JPEG file format, allowing them to be easily sent as a still image to devices that don't support Live Photo. Apple's developer documents indicate that you can share the image as a regular JPEG if desired.

More details should come out as the new iPhones begin shipping on September 25th.

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Top Rated Comments

lordofthereef Avatar
116 months ago
Another reason why 16gb entry level is so damn painful
Score: 95 Votes (Like | Disagree)
soupcan Avatar
116 months ago
16GB lol.

Apple please. There has to be at least one sane person who thought "we can't ship 16GB phones" inside those walls, right? RIGHT?
Score: 49 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JamesPDX Avatar
116 months ago
I like this. Very Harry Potter-ish.
Score: 44 Votes (Like | Disagree)
btrach144 Avatar
116 months ago
Apple just keeps milking their followers. 16GB entry storage and yet they've added Live Photos and 4k video recording? Sigh. At least I plan to go for the 128GB but I feel bad for those on a budget or who don't know what 16GB really means.
Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cariacou Avatar
116 months ago
so that's why they stuck with 16gb
Score: 31 Votes (Like | Disagree)
vmistery Avatar
116 months ago
To be honest I was expecting them to take up a lot more space than double.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)