During the iPhone 6s section of today’s Apple event, Apple SVP Phil Schiller announced an incredible new feature called Live Photos. As the name suggests, Live Photos will essentially bring your photos to life by capturing small snippets (1.5 seconds) of video right before and after you take a photo.
You’ll be able to view the Live Photos on your iPhone 6s by activating 3D Touch, and Apple says playback will be available on Photos in El Capitan on the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and even Apple Watch. And since they’re not technically videos, it claims they don’t take up much more space than photographs.
Yes, it’s a little gimmicky, and I believe I’ve seen this (or a similar) feature before, but Live Photos seems like it has the potential to be a big hit with users. Developers will get access to the feature, and Apple says that Facebook will be updating its suite of applications to support it by the end of the year.