iPhone 12 Pro: Everything the LiDAR Sensor Can Do!

[, Music, ], hey guys mark here and i was planning on doing a lot of testing with the cameras on the iphone 12 pro, but unfortunately the weather has not been cooperating with me. So i figured i'd take a little bit of a different approach and talk about that new lidar sensor on the iphone 12 pro and the pro max lidar isn't really new tech. It'S used in a lot of cars now for backup, sensors and other range sensing features and the 2020 ipad pro has had one since march, but since apple put them on the new iphone pro models. Some of you might be wondering, or might be curious as to what lidar does and how you can take advantage of it. For those of you that don't know, lidar stands for light detection and ranging, and it's basically a sensor that emits light through rapidly firing lasers, which reflect off of nearby objects. When that light, bounces off of an object and returns to the sensor. The time it takes for the light to return to the sensor is recorded and accurate measurement data can be extrapolated. It'S very similar to how the face id works on the front of the phone, except it's effective at a much larger range. One big advantage of that new lidar sensor is that portrait mode photos should be much more accurate and it's the reason why apple is now letting us take portrait mode photos with night mode on the 12 pro the lighter sensor emits its own light, so it can Measure distance, even when there isn't much light around, keep in mind that the quality of the photo is still limited to how good the image, sensor and image processing software is, though, the lighter sensor can help with those portrait mode photos, but it isn't going to improve The overall image quality of your shots, it will improve the auto focus, speed and accuracy in both photos, and video, though apple, is claiming that the 12 pro and pro max will have up to six times faster, auto focus in low light. Because of that inclusion of the lidar sensor, another big use for the sensor is being able to accurately measure the size of objects with the measure app that comes pre-installed on the phone. The sensor has a limited range of about 5 meters, or so so you do need to be fairly close to the object to take advantage of lidar. But it does seem a lot more accurate than the measure app on previous iphones without lidar to see just how accurate it was. I measured several objects with a traditional tape measure and then compared it to the measurements i got when using the measure app on the iphone 12 pro. The measure app actually gets pretty darn close to what i was getting with the tape measure. Sometimes it was a centimeter off or two, but sometimes it was just bang on. turn off avast wouldn't use this app to help me build a house or anything but for estimating the size of objects for work. That'S not accuracy! Critical! It'S super handy to have the measure app around it'll, also attempt to map out objects that are squares or rectangles in shape and then give you all of the measurements for all sides at once. Try doing that with a tape measure in 3 seconds. The app can now measure your height too. You need a tripod or a friend to help you with this one, but all you need to do is stand up next to a wall with your full body in view and the app will attempt to accurately measure your height. The lidar sensor is also going to help out with apps that run on apple's ar kit. I'Ve been getting a kick out of playing a few ar games like angry birds and ar robot. The lidar sensor makes ar objects much more stable on the ground. The best way that i can describe it is that they actually feel like they're stuck to the surface and they feel like they're, more a part of your actual environment. You can move around your room and look at the objects up close and they'll stay exactly where they're supposed to it's a lot more fun than i was anticipating. It does kill the battery pretty quickly in the 12 pro though, but that's to be expected when it's using the camera and lidar sensor to track and show the environment as well as a lot of heavy processing from the a14 bionic to render the game in that Environment, there's apps like ikea place too, where you can put one or more of ikea's furniture items in your room so that you can see what it'll look like with your other furniture, which is actually a lot more helpful than i thought. Unfortunately, this also makes me about 10 times more likely to order furniture from ikea, which i'm sure is definitely the point of the app. This sensor is going to open up a lot of opportunities for apple in the future too. A lot of people are anticipating that the data that apple is collecting from the lidar sensors in the ipad pro and the iphone 12 pro models are going to help create a better ar experience for the rumored apple glasses that are supposed to be coming within the Next few years or so so i'm pretty excited for that. The lidar sensor is a very useful sensor for certain things, but i wouldn't call it essential if you're trying to decide between the iphone 12 and the iphone 12 pro. I wouldn't let it be your deciding factor, since there aren't a whole lot of apps that take advantage of it right now, either way, though it's a cool piece of technology, and i'm glad that it's here on the iphone 12 pro. If you like this video, please give it a like and subscribe to support my channel and, as always, have a great day you