Halide Update Lets iPhone XR Users Take Portrait Photos Of Anything, Not Just People

Halide is already a hugely popular third-party camera app for the iPhone and the developers behind the app have been pushing updates out relating to the arrival of the iPhone XS and the way the new cameras work. The recent arrival of the iPhone XR has required another update, with that one now available for download. The only change relates to the iPhone XR specifically, with Halide now offering owners of the device the ability to take Portrait shots of anything, not just humans. That was one limitation of the iPhone XR’s single-camera configuration, at least, when using the stock Camera app.

With Halide now able to take Portrait shots of objects and pets, we do wonder why Apple hasn’t enabled the same functionality as standard.

Halide accomplishes this by using iPhone XR’s focus pixel disparity map and running the image through our custom blur. When you open Halide on iPhone XR, simply tap ‘Depth’ to enable depth capture. Any photo you take will have a depth map, and if there’s sufficient data to determine a foreground and background, the image will get beautifully rendered bokeh, just like iPhone XS shots.

That’s the good news out of the way. The bad news is that even with Halide working its magic, iPhone XR owners will not also get the live depth effect preview, something that the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are capable of doing. However, this update does take the iPhone XR and give it some additional functionality that Apple didn’t see fit to include, and that makes the $5.99 asking price worth every penny in our eyes.

If you already own Halide, this update is available for free from the App Store.

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