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“Does anyone have an iPhone charger?” a person asks in a panic. Others shrug their shoulders because they have a house full of chargers – but they’re all USB-C. This is no longer going to happen. Well, at least not in Europe.
The European Union has reached a landmark agreement that wants to unify various consumer electronics and make them feature a USB-C charging port. Yes, this includes the iPhone and AirPods, and it should happen by 2024.
When the pandemic began, everyone started offering software that turns your DLSR, mirrorless, or phone into a webcam. Apple has joined the 2-year-old trend and it will soon finally enable you to use your iPhone as a webcam. What do you mean, “improve the native Mac camera?” Nah, you can attach your phone to it for your Zoom meetings.
Who says the wristwatch is dead? Not Apple at any rate as they have just filed a patent application for a “watch having a camera” Yep, we have camera-phones, but now it looks like we may get a camera-watch in future. But don’t worry, it will probably be more James Bond than Flight of the Concords. Apple isn’t planning to actually glue a point and shoot onto a watch, they’ve come up with several different ideas for how to execute it.
One of the designs depicts the camera placed in the digital crown part of the watch (that’s the side button for the uninitiated), where it can operate whilst the wristwatch is being worn, which does seem logical to keep it out of the way.
Keeping your gear safe and secure seems to be one of the biggest challenges facing photographers today. It’s not a new problem, but it seems to be one that’s on the rise as the popularity of photography and expensive camera gear has grown over the last couple of decades since the photography world went digital. Sure, we have insurance for when it goes missing but the chances of getting it back are often very slim.
Camera accessory company, Nine Volt, wants to help try and change that and they’ve designed a camera body cap, called the AirCap, that appears pretty normal from the outside but it contains a hidden compartment that lets you store an Apple AirTag, letting you track your stolen camera wherever it may be.
Yet another lawsuit has arisen against Snap, and this time, Google and Apple have been sued, too. A 16-year-old girl and her mother sued the three companies after a grown man, an active-duty Marine, had manipulated the girl into sending him nude photos since she was 12. The lawsuit claims that the companies failed to protect teen users from “egregious harm” and the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM).
Camera equipment is an ever-increasing target for thieves, and unlike mobile phones and other electronic equipment, it doesn’t usually come with tracking or disabling devices installed. But tracking options do exist, we just need to add them to our gear.
One photographer in Australia was incredibly fortunate to be able to recover around $7,000 worth of camera equipment after putting Apple AirTags on a few of the higher value items.
If you’re an Apple Silicon user that uses Adobe After Effects, you’ve probably Googled “when the hell will After Effects get M1 support?” at least a handful of times over the last couple of years. Even before writing this post, I did a quick search and found a bunch of Reddit and social media posts complaining about its absence. A beta version was released last October, but as with all betas, you can’t rely on it for actual production work for paying clients.
Well, today, you can finally relax and celebrate as Adobe has announced that Adobe After Effects for Apple M1 is now out of beta and has been officially released. It boasts up to 2x faster performance on M1 and 3x M1 Ultra systems compared to previous generation macs. Sensei machine learning features like Roto Brush 2 are also much faster as is ProRes decoding and rendering.
When last we met, I pointed out the perils of using Apple’s iCloud Photos for photo backup for one simple reason: if you delete an image off your iPhone, Apple will in turn also delete it from iCloud*.
This time I’d like to go over the best alternative photo backup options for you in more detail, because like it or not, in today’s world, just like paying for food, shelter and taxes, if you snap photos on your smartphone or camera, you will be paying for online storage. And paying more in the coming years as well, as you snap more images.
There’s no such thing as free backup anymore.
The big news amongst the general creative world this week has been the release of the Apple Mac Studio, carrying its shiny new M1 Ultra chip. There have been a number of totally unbiased “reviews” of the new system all over YouTube but Max Yuryev at Max Tech has actually taken one apart so we can take a look at its insides.
The new Mac Studio comes in a very tiny package for the amount of power that it boasts, but the teardown reveals that at least parts of the system might actually be upgradeable, thanks to two SSD ports found internally in the system – against official Apple advice.
In a notice posted to the Fujifilm X website, the company has announced that they’ve detected an issue with some X series and GFX cameras, including the flagship GFX 100, that may cause your files and memory cards to become inaccessible when used with macOS. Essentially, it boils down to how much you store on your memory card inside the camera.
Essentially, if there are too many files on your memory card, macOS doesn’t like it and can make your files inaccessible as a result. Fujifilm says they are working on a fix, although they haven’t yet announced a date, and offered up some tips to help avoid the issue from coming up until it’s released.
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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