Apple Reportedly Acquired Israeli Photography Startup Camerai Last Year - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Apple Reportedly Acquired Israeli Photography Startup Camerai Last Year

Apple quietly acquired Israeli photography startup Camerai around a year and a half ago for several tens of millions of dollars, with many of its employees joining Apple's computer vision team in Israel, according to Calcalist. A separate source confirmed the story to TechCrunch, but Apple has yet to offer an official statement.

camerai
The report claims that Camerai developed photography-related technologies, including advanced capabilities in deep learning and computer vision, that have already become "a significant part of every Apple camera" and "made life easier for developers who wanted to include AR capabilities in their various apps."

TechCrunch listed some of these technologies:

Its tech included the ability to detect different objects in the picture, and outline them with precision to alter them cosmetically; the ability to outline and apply filters across the whole image; a "skeleton tracking" neural network API that could detect and draw body joints in real time overlaid on a picture of a human; and its own version of selective focus for enhanced portrait modes…

Originally named Tipit, the company was founded in 2014 by Aaron Wetzler, Erez Tal, Jonathan Rimon, and Moty Kosharovsky.

Popular Stories

imac video apple feature

Apple Released Yet Another New Product Today

Friday March 20, 2026 2:39 pm PDT by
Apple has unveiled a whopping nine new products so far this March, including an iPhone 17e, iPad Air models with the M4 chip, MacBook Air models with the M5 chip, MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, the all-new MacBook Neo, an updated Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, AirPods Max 2, and now the Nike Powerbeats Pro 2. iPhone 17e features the same overall design as...
iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Wednesday March 18, 2026 7:39 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another six months or so, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. It was initially reported that the iPhone 18 Pro models would have fully under-screen Face ID, with only a front camera visible in the top-left corner of the screen. However, the latest rumors indicate that only one Face ID component...
ios 26 4 pastel

iOS 26.4: Top 10 New Features Coming to Your iPhone

Friday March 20, 2026 2:44 pm PDT by
iOS 26.4 isn't the major update with new Siri features that we hoped for, but there are some useful quality of life improvements, and a little bit of fun with an AI playlist generator and new emoji characters. Playlist Playground - Apple Music has a Playlist Playground option that lets you generate playlists from text-based descriptions. You can include moods, feelings, activities, or...

Top Rated Comments

AngerDanger Avatar
73 months ago

Its tech included the ability to detect different objects in the picture, and … a "skeleton tracking" neural network API that could detect and draw body joints in real time …
This is pretty awesome—not only for realtime VFX in video, but for its use in AR too.

Apple has made a big deal before about each one of its breakthrough devices (the Mac, iPod, and iPhone) having a unique input method that makes them incredibly easy to use (the mouse, clickwheel, and multitouch).

If Apple is going to produce their own AR/VR device, the most seamless input method for casual use is reaching out and touching UI elements without any additional hardware.

It seems like pulling that off would be computationally intensive, but depending on how Apple stacks image filters, it could actually be relatively easy:
[LIST=1]
* A normal RGB camera could constantly be searching for any landmarks indicating a pointing gesture.
* Only once that gesture is recognized, algorithms like the ones owned by this company could try to see if the hand making the gesture belongs to the person wearing the AR device.
* Only once it's determined that the person pointing is wearing the device, LiDAR could search for a change in depth around the finger, indicating a tap in midair. (Kinda like that IR patent from a while ago but with z-distance instead of heat.)



Attachment Image
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cavi Avatar
73 months ago

If (ONLY) several tens of millions of U.S. ? dollars, then it was probably just the four named guys.

Sounds like $5M-$7.5M USD each, which is pretty good Coin if living in Israel.
I will sign for 5 to 7.5 million US$ everywhere in the world 😄
Just for you to know, Israel is a very expensive country to live in, especially Tel Aviv which is one of the most expensive cities in the world 🤦🏻‍♂️
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)