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

Top Rated Comments

Premium1 Avatar
25 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
25 months ago
So, this is the Studio Display update...
Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)
markfc Avatar
25 months ago
tvOS needs this so i can FaceTime from the TV.
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Cognizant. Avatar
25 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
25 months ago
Aka..we are sorry for Studio Display’s webcam, hope this helps.

Luls
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Danfango Avatar
25 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)

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
iPad And Calculator App Feature

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
iOS 18 Siri Integrated Feature

iOS 18 Rumored to Add These 10 New Features to Your iPhone

Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....