Live Photos Shown Off In New Hands-On Video

One of the brand new features for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus is Live Photos, which captures an additional 3 seconds of video around a still image and plays it through when a user 3D Touches the photo. We went hands on with the new feature and experimented with it.

Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.

To use Live Photos, a user just has to take a normal photo when the "live" icon in the upper center of the screen is lit up. The iPhone automatically captures 1.5 seconds of video before and after the photo and stitches it all together. Because Live Photos combines video and still images, the new format takes up double the space a regular photo would.

While reviewers were largely positive on Live Photos, first impressions from users haven't been as kind. MacRumors forum member kungxpao said that he turned the feature off after a few test shots. However, some users see potential in the feature, like fellow forum member Conan86.

Live Photo is a great feature when you create them intentionally. I hope Apple would allow us to remove accidental "live" portions of a photo as I probably wouldn't hold 3 seconds to take a photo every single time.

Only the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus can create Live Photos, but they are viewable on all iOS 9 devices and Macs running OS X El Capitan. Eventually, Live Photos will also be shareable on social media services like Facebook and Instagram.

Related Forum: iPhone

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Top Rated Comments

macfoxpro Avatar
122 months ago
Live Photos are cool, but 3D Touch will change the whole game from here on out.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
greytmom Avatar
122 months ago
My dogs are going to be so sick of me taking photos of them.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
b3ats Avatar
122 months ago

Live Photo is a great feature when you create them intentionally. I hope Apple would allow us to remove accidental "live" portions of a photo as I probably wouldn't hold 3 seconds to take a photo every single time.
If you did it by mistake you can just go to edit and turn the Live Photo off by pressing the icon. Also, if you try to crop the photo it removes the live element permanently.

I think it's a great feature. I got a photo of a pint of Guinness settling for my lock screen. It's pretty cool - the bubbles go both up & down.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
east85 Avatar
122 months ago
Seems like one of those features I'd turn off as soon as I got the phone.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
swingerofbirch Avatar
122 months ago
Only Apple could get away with moving pictures as a tentpole feature.

Moving pictures=motion pictures=movies.

I've never used Vine, but I'm guessing that's what inspired this. I think if it were any other company, the press would be calling it a Vine-like feature, and there would be headlines like, "Do 6-second Vines need to be even shorter? Samsung says so!" And John Gruber would be writing some tripe about Samsung being out of ideas and copying everyone.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Otis Bagotis Avatar
122 months ago
there are a few things I don't like about the implementation. For one the pic is taken with 1.5 sec delay. So you might miss the right time point for the pic although the movie captures that.

Also I don't get the blurry first half second on replay. Why is it blurry? It looks like the movie captures the focussing of the camera.

And the click and hold to make them play in the photo app is also not very intuitive.

The idea itself is good and fun however.
I think you're mistaken on how it actually works. When the camera app is open it is continuously recording whatever you're pointing the camera at. Once you click/press the shutter button it saves the 1.5 seconds of video before and after the click and discards the rest.

There is no wait time from when you click/press the button and when the picture is taken.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)