macOS 13 Ventura Lets You Use Your iPhone's Camera as a Webcam

As part of its macOS 13 Ventura presentation at WWDC 2022, Apple today announced Continuity Camera, which gives Mac owners the ability to use their iPhone as a webcam.

Apple WWDC22 macOS Ventura Continuity Camera lifestyle 220606 big
A Mac running macOS 13 can automatically recognize and use the camera on an ‌iPhone‌ when it is nearby, without the need to wake or select it, and the ‌iPhone‌ can also connect to the Mac wirelessly.

Continuity Camera includes FaceTime features like Center Stage, Portrait mode, and a new Studio Light effect that illuminates a user's face while dimming the background.

In addition, Continuity Camera uses the Ultra Wide camera on an ‌iPhone‌ to enable Desk View, which simultaneously shows the user's face and an overhead view of their desk, which is useful for creating DIY videos, showing off sketches over ‌FaceTime‌, and more.

Continuity Camera is available on ‌iPhone‌ XR or later models. Using Continuity Camera wirelessly requires a Mac and an ‌iPhone‌ or iPad with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on, and both devices must be signed in to the same Apple ID with two-factor authentication.

Continuity Camera with Center Stage and Desk View is available on ‌iPhone‌ 11 or later running iOS 16. Studio Light is available on ‌iPhone‌ 12 or later running iOS 16.

For all the other details and new features in macOS 13 Ventura, see our dedicated article.

Related Forum: macOS Ventura

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Top Rated Comments

Premium1 Avatar
40 months ago
Apple- "we won't upgrade the crappy cameras in macs, so use your phone instead"
Score: 38 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Apple Knowledge Navigator Avatar
40 months ago
So, this is the Studio Display update...
Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)
markfc Avatar
40 months ago
tvOS needs this so i can FaceTime from the TV.
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Cognizant. Avatar
40 months ago

This is a really puzzling feature. Is this them admitting that the Mac cameras aren’t great?
No, it isn’t. There are no laptop cameras on earth that would even remotely compare to this. People hook up full on DSLRs to their computer to use as a streaming cam. Why this puzzles some of you is beyond me. This allows for extremely high quality webcam streaming.
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bleighv Avatar
40 months ago
Aka..we are sorry for Studio Display’s webcam, hope this helps.

Luls
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Danfango Avatar
40 months ago
That's so going to crack a screen. How about stopping shipping ****** cameras in the computers.

Edit: this actually has a similar level of quality as truck nuts.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)