Continuity Camera Is a Super Smart Solution to Apple’s Bad Webcams

Apple’s Mac webcam is terrible, but the iPhone’s main camera is great. Why not combine them?

That’s the idea behind Continuity Camera, when your iPhone is near your Mac, it automatically gets a wireless feed from your iPhone’s camera, and you can make FaceTime, Zoom, or other video calls. The results are incredible. In fact, it’s so good that it’s worth keeping an old iPhone for just a webcam.

“Apple’s Mac lineup […] Often criticized for its webcams, which are pretty poor quality despite Apple having much better quality camera modules in other devices, especially the iPhone,” Rajesh NamaseyTechnical Writer and Co-Founder Technical Supporttold Lifewire via email.

back in the 90s

Separate webcams used to be a thing, Apple even sold one of its own, iSight. Then the camera hardware got small enough to fit into the lid of a laptop, and that’s it; pretty much every computer now has a camera built into it.

But then something happened. We’re used to great cameras on our phones and iPads. MacBook lids are getting thinner and thinner, so you can’t fit a decent camera inside (even iPhones, which are much thicker than laptop lids, have a huge camera bump on the back). And we’ve got a pandemic, which means we’re all doing more video calls.

Apple’s built-in Mac webcam is pedestrian at best. The current 14-inch MacBook Pro has a 1080p camera, or 1920 x 1080 pixels, or 2 megapixels. It also sucks in low light (aka all office lights). Apple’s current solution to its inferior cameras is to use computing power to clean up images. There’s even an iPhone chip inside the Studio Display, which must help improve the picture.

But the results were still poor, the skin was blotchy, the color was poor, and the video generally looked terrible. Continuity cameras solve all these problems.

Continuity camera

Continuity Camera is Apple’s collective term for using your iPhone or iPad’s camera remotely on your Mac. For some time now, you’ve been able to use the camera on your phone to scan documents and take photos directly into Mac apps, which is very useful.

Now, when you launch FaceTime or other video calling applications, the iPhone will appear as the video source. To be automatically selected as the FaceTime camera, the iPhone must be positioned close to your computer, in a landscape orientation, and cannot be moved. If it meets these requirements, your iPhone will turn on when you launch the FaceTime app and that’s it. Now it’s the camera.

The difference is quite noticeable, especially in low light. The iPhone’s camera also has autofocus, which means you’ll always be good and sharp.

But that’s not all. You can also choose to use several video effects (available in the Control Center menu on Mac). Portrait mode blurs the background, studio lighting brightens you (but looks a little weird), center stage uses a wide-angle camera to cover a larger area, which is then cropped close to you or you and any other participants, following you as you move open.

Like center stage with a regular built-in camera, the quality suffers, but it’s still better.

You can also choose to use your iPhone’s mic, your Mac’s mic, or any other mic you connect to your Mac, and you can move the camera independently of the screen for better framing or display other content to call participants.

actual

If you’re using an iMac or an external monitor with your laptop, you can easily leave a mounting bracket on top of the screen.There are also clips, such as This one is from Belkin, you can easily connect your phone in seconds. For many, it’s a small effort that can pay off hugely.

But there are also downsides.

“It required buying an extra accessory to connect the phone to the laptop. People couldn’t see messages and important notifications on the phone while using the continuity camera. Even so, the desktop view was refreshing and easy to set up and use” Paul Walshphone and tablet refurbishment experts and video calling enthusiasts told Lifewire via email.

If you’re constantly interrupting with your phone while you’re on a call, you need to work on this. But otherwise, it’s a complete victory. After all, why put a nice camera on your laptop when you already have a better camera in your pocket?