Selfie with iJustine and Tim Prepare dinner at 2025 Apple Occasion.
Jason Hiner/ZDNET
We at all times knew folks took loads of selfies, however when Apple unveiled its 2025 fall units, it revealed that iPhone customers had taken over 500 billion selfies prior to now 12 months. Since there are about 1.5 billion iPhone customers on the planet, that is a mean of about 330 selfies a 12 months per particular person.
On this selfie taken on the iPhone 17, you’ll be able to see the extent of element within the face, hat, and the feel on the wall. You may as well see the dynamic vary within the clouds within the sky.
Jason Hiner/ZDNET
No marvel Apple determined to reimagine how the front-facing digicam works on the iPhone this 12 months.
Within the course of, Apple additionally gave the selfie digicam a giant improve in picture high quality. For these of us who take loads of selfies, that is welcome information as a result of the front-facing digicam has been the weakest hyperlink among the many iPhone cameras for years. And as Apple’s knowledge reveals, it could be probably the most used digicam on the telephone for plenty of of us.
Additionally: I’ve reviewed each iPhone 17 mannequin, and my recommendation is one thing completely different this 12 months
Apple gave all 4 telephones within the iPhone 17 lineup the identical improve to the selfie digicam by taking it from a 12MP rectangular sensor to a 24MP sq. sensor that may take an 18MP picture in both horizontal or vertical orientation.
In actual fact, one of many coolest issues in regards to the new front-facing digicam is that as quickly as you invoke it, a brand new button pops up known as the Middle Stage button and whenever you faucet it then it switches your photograph between vertical and horizontal modes with out it’s a must to flip the digicam round. In different phrases, you’ll be able to maintain it whichever means is most snug for you — sometimes vertical for most individuals — and the software program will do all of the work.
Even higher, you’ll be able to click on the Middle Stage settings on the prime of the window and activate Auto Zoom and Auto Rotate. With that, the iPhone will now use AI to mechanically determine all of the folks in your shot by placing containers round their faces after which it can mechanically swap between vertical and horizontal and extensive and ultrawide to suit everybody within the shot.
The interface for the front-facing digicam on the iPhone 17 fashions now enables you to swap between vertical and horizontal (proper arrow) and set the Middle Stage to make use of AI mechanically zoom or swap between vertical and horizontal to get everybody in your group selfie shot (left arrow).
Screenshot by Jason Hiner
Whereas Apple makes use of “Middle Stage” branding for its new selfie digicam, it is much more highly effective than the Middle Stage characteristic on Mac and iPad that merely retains you within the middle of the body on video calls.
Additionally: I examined the iPhone 17 Professional Max, and here is one large motive for a year-over-year improve
In actual fact, Apple’s new selfie digicam within the iPhone 17 lineup is clearly the neatest selfie digicam on the planet. It is so good that it is powerful to return to utilizing a static selfie digicam on older iPhones and on Android telephones. With that in thoughts, I’d not be shocked to see Android telephone makers undertake the sq. selfie sensor of their smartphones in 2026 and past.
Apple went from lagging different flagship smartphones – which have been utilizing 24MP selfie cameras since as early as 2018 — to leapfrogging all of them in a single era of telephones.
Right here is the horizontal model of the selfie above, with all the identical high quality advantages of the brand new 18MP sensor. The one distinction is that I hit the Middle Stage button to modify to panorama mode.
Jason Hiner/ZDNET
I have been testing the brand new selfie cameras on the assorted fashions of the iPhone 17 lineup for the previous a number of weeks and I am joyful to report that it really works in addition to marketed and the entrance sensor is now worthy of taking high-quality pictures and never simply fast pictures to submit on social media.
