Apple Could Have Brought a Big iPhone X Feature To Older iPhone But Didn't, Developer Says (twitter.com)

Steven Troughton-Smith, a prominent iOS developer best known for combing new software codes for references for upcoming features, over the weekend indicated that portrait mode lighting effects, a major feature in the current iPhone generation -- iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X, could technically be added to iPhone 7 Plus from last year. The feature works like this: you take a picture, go to the photos app on your new iPhone and play with the "Lighting" effects. He writes: So yeah you just need to hexedit the metadata in the HEIC. Not quite sure where, I copied a whole section from an iPhone X Portrait Mode photo and it worked. Original photo taken on 7 Plus on iOS 11. Someone could automate this. Just to add insult to injury, if you AirDrop that photo back to the iPhone 7 Plus now it shows the Portrait Lighting UI, and lets you change mode. So Portrait Lighting is 100% an artificial software limitation. 7 Plus photos can have it, 7 Plus can do it.

Comments

Probably a case of testing

[mlw4428]

My guess is that a "cornerstone" feature like this isn't so much artificially restricted as it is just disabled because Apple isn't testing iPhone 7s. That's not to say they won't backport, but their hands are probably pretty full just fixing iOS 11's messes.

Re:Oh please

[DontBeAMoran]

It would have sold more future iPhones by showing current iPhone 7 users that buying an iPhone is a good value for the money.

With this news, it instead shows them that Apple kept a feature from their current iPhone in order to make them buy a new phone, thus showing them they can't trust Apple and should pick a different company for their next phone.

Um...Thank you?

[ArhcAngel]

I have seen numerous companies that had a tiered line where the lower end model is identical to the higher end just feature locked. Part of the fun of getting the lower end model was hacking it to unlock the higher end features. a good percentage of the automotive head units are this way. In fact the Ford I have now has a head unit that supports a backup camera but my model doesn't support the option so if I want to add a camera I have to flash a different model firmware.

That title is so clickbait-y

[rbpOne]

Please don't go down that road, Slashdot.