True FaceTime HD
For reasons we can only guess at, Apple has saddled its Macs with substandard webcams for years. While the iPhone and iPad Pro gained 4K-capable front TrueDepth cameras, even last year’s flagship 16-inch MacBook Pro remained stuck with a mere 720p shooter.
So the fact that Apple has finally updated the FaceTime camera on this year’s iMac to full 1080p HD is actually a really big deal by itself, especially if you’re someone who spends a lot of time in video conferencing — which, let’s face it, is just about everybody these days.
In fact, if you’re a heavy user of FaceTime or Zoom et al, this spec bump alone may make a new iMac well worth the purchase price, and as The Verge discovered, there’s actually more to this new camera than just a resolution increase. Apple is also using the new T2 Security Chip — which clearly offers a lot more than just “security” — to do image processing to the video stream, meaning that it now offers things like face detection, tone mapping, and exposure control, providing more accurate lighting and skin tones.