Photos & Camera

Almost every new version of iOS in the past few years has rolled out new camera and photo management features, and iOS 13 is no exception. Apple will be enhancing portrait lighting, taking it to a new level with the ability to now actually adjust the virtual lighting distance as you could in a lighting studio — even after the photo has been taken. This uses the same kind of advanced machine learning as the rest of Apple’s Portrait Lighting features, and is adapted to work uniquely for each style of portrait lighting.

What’s perhaps most interesting about this is that it appears that it will be available to all of the current devices that support Portrait Lighting, rather than being something Apple is saving for its 2019 iPhone lineup. That said, it’s almost certain that we’ll hear about other new photo features in September, especially with a triple-lens iPhone expected to debut.

Brand new photo editing experience

iOS 13 also makes some pretty big changes to the editor in the Photos app, providing a new view of adjustments and allowing them to be easily made with tap-and-drag gestures. There’s also a whole slew of new effects, and all of these editing features are coming to video for the first time.

In the past, if you wanted to do something even as basic as rotating a video, you had to resort to using an app like iMovie. Now in iOS 13, not only will you be able to rotate videos, but you’ll be able to apply effects and filters.

New way of browsing and experiencing photos

Apple is also redesigning the photo browsing experience in iOS 13 to make it easier to see your best photos. At a basic level, machine learning will be used to hide duplicates and other clutter such as screenshots and document snapshots, while new year, month, and day views will provide a dynamic diary of your life.

Using machine learning, browsing in one of these views will organize the most significant events from each period into relevant, context-aware highlights. For example, during someone’s birthday, browsing back through time will surface more photos of that person, while by contrast if you’re attending an event like WWDC, you’ll see more photos of that from your past.