A single feature helped Apple „steal“ all of Android’s photography styles. Why buy a Samsung, Pixel, or a Xiaomi if your iPhone can be all of them?
When Huawei first started working with Leica to make the cameras of the Huawei P20 series better, everyone in the smartphone industry was sceptical of the collaboration, which looked more like a marketing scheme.
Fast forward a few years, Leica now works with Xiaomi, and we also have a bunch of other similar collaborations like the ones between OnePlus and Hasselblad, as well as Vivo and Zeiss.
And while I’m sure phone-makers would be able to make a great cameraphone without the help of legacy camera brands, I must admit that the so-called “camera tuning” achieved in collaboration with the likes of Leica, Zeiss, and Hasselblad has been of great benefit for phones like the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, Vivo X100 Ultra, and Oppo Find X7 Ultra.
iPhone 16 is low-key one of Apple’s biggest camera upgrades ever – just not in a way you’d expect
Pixel 9 Pro vs Vivo X100 Ultra – notice Vivo’s dramatic image processing, which comes from a Zeiss filter. Taken by Ben Sin.
Now, to be clear, Apple isn’t “collaborating” with anyone for the camera tuning of the iPhone 16 series – God forbid we saw anything other than Apple’s own logo on the back of the iPhone! But the idea of what Tim Cook & Co are going for is similar, or actually… even better.
Long story short, Apple has taken the “Photographic Styles” it introduced a few years back, and made them actually useful. You no longer have to choose between four styles – you can now tweak the original output of the iPhone’s camera to take exactly the kind of photos you like.
We’re talking about being able to control the shadows, highlights, brightness, exposure, and colors to a level we haven’t even dreamed of. Apple took Xiaomi, Vivo, and OnePlus’ awesome camera tricks and made them even better.
In simple terms, you can have the equivalent for Xiaomi’s “Leica” style image processing on iPhone – but it’s even more powerful and flexible.
