Photography

7 simple ways to safely back up your iPhone photos and videos

Ankur Thakur ∙ Updated August 1, 2022

I have a friend who nearly lost all of his photos of his daughter. He had his iPhone for just about two years and he took tons of pictures of her. She wasn't even two years old yet, so basically, her whole life was on his iPhone. One day, his phone crashed, and he couldn't figure out what happened to it. His pictures were lost.

He was eventually able to recover his photos, but not without hours of work and days of anxiety. When I asked him why he didn't just back his photos up, he had no good response. Always back up your precious photos. Seriously. Always back up your photos!

Here are a few different ways to back up your photos and videos so you'll never have to face the dreaded lost memories again.

Aperture ports iOS 15’s detailed photo information to jailbroken iOS 13 & 14 devices

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated March 11, 2022

One of the things I really like about iOS & iPadOS 15 is the ability to see detailed information about images that are stored in my iPhone or iPad’s Photo Library. Types of information include the type of device it was captured on, camera specs, location, and more.

BaDaBing makes the camera shutter sound less conspicuous on jailbroken devices

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 5, 2022

Your iPhone is designed to play a simulated camera shutter sound every time you tap on the shutter button in the Camera app to take a photograph, however this only happens when your iPhone isn’t in silent mode.

Periscope aka folded lens: What it is, how it works and why it’ll boost iPhone photography

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 27, 2021

A dedicated telephoto lens (aka zoom lens) found on some iPhones boosts iPhone photography with optical zoom capabilities. Future iPhones are rumored to allow for even deeper zoom by adopting a periscope lens (or foldable lens as it's sometimes referred to). At its core, this technology diverts light through a prism and into a telephoto lens set at a ninety-degree angle to a rear-facing lens and buried deep inside the chassis.

Telescope ports the detailed photography info from iOS 15’s Photos app to jailbroken iOS 14 devices

Anthony Bouchard ∙ December 3, 2021

A really neat feature of iOS 15 that I like to use fairly regularly is swiping up on any photograph to view specific details about the device that captured it and when and where it was captured.

iOS 15.2 beta 2 adds a Macro mode toggle in the iPhone 13 Pro’s Camera app

Evan Selleck ∙ November 12, 2021

With the launch of iOS 15 and the iPhone 13 Pro, which includes support for macro photography, Apple made a bold decision. That was automatic switching, which could be pretty aggressive sometimes. That meant that some users were unable to avoid automatically switching to Macro mode for snapping a photo, even when they didn't want it. The good news, Apple was quick to fix it with the wide launch of iOS 15.1.

iOS 15.1 beta 3 adds ‘Auto Macro’ toggle to disable automatic camera switching; ProRes Video support

Evan Selleck ∙ October 6, 2021

It's probably safe to say that iOS 15 has had a fair share of pain points since its public launch back in September. Interestingly, one of those was Apple's decision to . . . aggressively switch between macro photography and not. Some reviewers pointed it out that it was a bit of an issue, but Apple was pretty quick to say that a fix was incoming.

Apple offers handy photography tips for taking expressive pet portraits with iPhone

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 26, 2024

A new educational video from Apple on the intricacies of taking depth-of-field images of four-legged friends offers some great tips for shooting expressive pet portraits with iPhone.

Today at Apple Creative Projects shows how to shoot and edit looping videos in Apple’s Clips app

Evan Selleck ∙ August 11, 2021

Today at Apple has a variety of different offshoots, but they all typically focus on creative endeavors using a range of Apple products. For example, the previous video uploaded as part of the Creative Projects initiative was meant to help iPhone photographers take better shots at night. And now the company is back with another tutorial.

Some of the best jailbreak tweaks for Photography on iOS 14

Anthony Bouchard ∙ August 2, 2021

If you own an iPhone, then a substantial part of the user experience would be tinkering with the powerful camera systems that Apple invests millions of dollars into improving year after year. This holds true even for jailbreakers since they can enjoy even more convenience and performance out of their iPhone’s camera than basic iPhone users thanks to being free of Apple’s software limitations.

Apple teaches you the tricks for taking very effective night shots with iPhone

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 11, 2021

Apple has shared a video in which it goes through some cool tips and tricks for how to shoot and edit “otherworldly photos” using the Night Mode feature on recent iPhones.

Apple goes behind the scenes to offer up ‘Shot on iPhone’ filmmaking techniques

Evan Selleck ∙ July 26, 2021

"Shot on iPhone" is one of Apple's most prominent, and long running, marketing efforts to date. It has been going on for years now, showcasing not only still photography, but also films, shot on the iPhone. And today, Apple's uploaded a new video meant to show off just how easy it can be to capture a cinematic shot on your smartphone.