We at all times knew individuals took plenty of selfies, however when Apple unveiled its 2025 fall gadgets, it revealed that iPhone customers had taken over 500 billion selfies prior to now 12 months. Since there are about 1.5 billion iPhone customers on the earth, that is a median of about 330 selfies a 12 months per particular person.
No surprise Apple determined to reimagine how the front-facing digital camera works on the iPhone this 12 months.
Within the course of, Apple additionally gave the selfie digital camera a giant improve in picture high quality. For these of us who take plenty of selfies, that is welcome information as a result of the front-facing digital camera has been the weakest hyperlink among the many iPhone cameras for years. And as Apple’s knowledge reveals, it could be essentially the most used digital camera on the telephone for plenty of people.
Apple gave all 4 telephones within the iPhone 17 lineup the identical improve to the selfie digital camera by taking it from a 12MP rectangular sensor to a 24MP sq. sensor that may take an 18MP picture in both horizontal or vertical orientation.
In truth, one of many coolest issues concerning the new front-facing digital camera is that as quickly as you invoke it, a brand new button pops up known as the Heart Stage button and while you faucet it then it switches your picture between vertical and horizontal modes with out it’s important to flip the digital camera round. In different phrases, you’ll be able to maintain it whichever approach is most snug for you — usually vertical for most individuals — and the software program will do all of the work.
Even higher, you’ll be able to click on the Heart Stage settings on the prime of the window and activate Auto Zoom and Auto Rotate. With that, the iPhone will now use AI to mechanically establish all of the individuals in your shot by placing containers round their faces after which it’ll mechanically swap between vertical and horizontal and large and ultrawide to suit everybody within the shot.
Whereas Apple makes use of “Heart Stage” branding for its new selfie digital camera, it is much more highly effective than the Heart Stage characteristic on Mac and iPad that merely retains you within the heart of the body on video calls.
In truth, Apple’s new selfie digital camera within the iPhone 17 lineup is clearly the neatest selfie digital camera on the earth. It is so good that it is powerful to return to utilizing a static selfie digital camera on older iPhones and on Android telephones. With that in thoughts, I’d not be stunned to see Android telephone makers undertake the sq. selfie sensor of their smartphones in 2026 and past.
Apple went from lagging different flagship smartphones – which have been utilizing 24MP selfie cameras since as early as 2018 — to leapfrogging all of them in a single technology of telephones.
I have been testing the brand new selfie cameras on the assorted fashions of the iPhone 17 lineup for the previous a number of weeks and I am completely satisfied to report that it really works in addition to marketed and the entrance sensor is now worthy of taking high-quality images and never simply fast pictures to put up on social media.
