Selfie with iJustine and Tim Prepare dinner at 2025 Apple Occasion.
Jason Hiner/ZDNET
We all the time knew folks took numerous selfies, however when Apple unveiled its 2025 fall units, it revealed that iPhone customers had taken over 500 billion selfies up to now 12 months. Since there are about 1.5 billion iPhone customers on the earth, that is a median of about 330 selfies a 12 months per individual.
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 can too see the dynamic vary within the clouds within the sky.
Jason Hiner/ZDNET
No marvel Apple determined to reimagine how the front-facing digital camera works on the iPhone this 12 months.
Within the course of, Apple additionally gave the selfie digital camera an enormous improve in picture high quality. For these of us who take numerous selfies, that is welcome information as a result of the front-facing digital camera has been the weakest hyperlink among the many iPhone cameras for years. And as Apple’s information exhibits, it could be probably the most used digital camera on the telephone for many of us.
Additionally: I’ve reviewed every iPhone 17 model, and my advice is something different this year
Apple gave all 4 telephones within the iPhone 17 lineup the identical improve to the selfie digital camera 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.
The truth is, one of many coolest issues in regards to the new front-facing digital camera is that as quickly as you invoke it, a brand new button pops up known as the Heart Stage button and while you faucet it then it switches your photograph between vertical and horizontal modes with out you need to flip the digital camera round. In different phrases, you’ll be able to maintain it whichever approach 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 Heart Stage settings on the prime of the window and activate Auto Zoom and Auto Rotate. With that, the iPhone will now use AI to robotically establish all of the folks in your shot by placing bins round their faces after which it can robotically change between vertical and horizontal and large and ultrawide to suit everybody within the shot.
The interface for the front-facing digital camera on the iPhone 17 fashions now enables you to change between vertical and horizontal (proper arrow) and set the Heart Stage to make use of AI robotically 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 “Heart Stage” branding for its new selfie digital camera, it is much more highly effective than the Heart Stage function on Mac and iPad that merely retains you within the middle of the body on video calls.
Additionally: I tested the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and here’s one big reason for a year-over-year upgrade
The truth is, Apple’s new selfie digital camera within the iPhone 17 lineup is clearly the neatest selfie digital camera on the earth. It is so good that it is powerful to return to utilizing a static selfie digital camera 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 Heart Stage button to change 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 pleased to report that it really works in addition to marketed and the entrance sensor is now worthy of taking high-quality images and never simply fast pictures to submit on social media.
