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MacOS Ventura Continuity Camera is a GAME CHANGING feature (use your iPhone as your webcam!)
Apr 30, 2024
MacOS Ventura will let you use your iPhone as your webcam, and it has a special trick. Watch full episodes of the CultCast at http://watch.thecultcast.com and catch the live show Thursdays around 11:45am PST. Search "The CultCast" in your favorite podcast player for full audio episodes.
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0:00
Let's talk about another feature that I thought was really quite mind-blowing to
0:06
be honest with you and very progressive of Apple and something that is sorely
0:10
needed in today's age of remote work and that is continuity camera. What was
0:20
your alternative headline in this oh yeah continuity camera admits Macbook cameras need help who wrote that was that you I don't oh no that came from
0:29
the story okay that's I guess that was excellent call to Mac did that no it
0:34
was a it was a subheader from the story. I see yeah yeah honestly when they
0:40
showed this I actually thought it was like one of the put on so they sometimes
0:44
I thought it was a joke like there I thought it was a iPhone tape to a Mac or
0:49
something. I it does it is so zany that it does kind of seem like they are
0:53
trolling us huh yeah I really thought it was a joke anyway. Let's talk about
0:58
what it is I suppose continuity camera it's a new feature coming in iOS 16 and
1:02
Mac OS Ventura and it's basically going to turn the iPhone into a webcam for the
1:07
Mac when you start or join a video call from your Mac your computer will sense
1:14
if your iPhone is nearby and is available to serve as a webcam assuming it is your
1:17
Mac automatically been streaming video directly from your phone's rear camera to
1:22
your video calling software and it anyway who Belkin and they said I think they
1:28
said Belkin and other people make are going to make these like little heard Belkin attachments that attach your iPhone to the top or you know screen of your
1:35
Mac which honestly looks bizarre. They say that it's you know it's not just
1:43
FaceTime it's going to work with Microsoft Teams WebEx and other video
1:48
conferencing software. I mean anything that can access your webcam. I think yeah
1:52
and I don't know if we did we not leave to be not get this in the story. I mean
1:56
one of the wildest things about that is that it can show your desktop at the same
2:00
time. It's like two webcams right wait so that again it could show your desktop
2:07
Oh right yeah in that which is freaky that was kind of a weird additional
2:11
feature. I don't know why you would use that feature so for those of you that
2:15
didn't catch it the in continuity camera mode. They demoed this ability for
2:21
the ultra wide camera to basically show the deck of your your your Mac that it
2:27
the phone is attached to and like your hands and everything. So people actual desk, not the computer desktop yeah yeah. So yeah, so it's like a it's like a
2:34
top down view of your workspace, which is a really cool feature. I just I was
2:39
trying to I was trying to envision like how you would use this like as a as a
2:43
YouTube creator. It might be useful to do something like that so that you could
2:47
show what's on your desk, but like if you're in like a team's meeting or something. Why would you I mean unless you're jeffery tubin? I don't make
2:59
people. Let's just try to go at unless you try to go full tubin, then let me
3:03
let me just tell you never go full tubin. No, I mean imagine if he had this
3:08
feature, he'd be in prison. The I mean if you think about it, like let's say
3:13
you're a a a food blogger or you know somebody who's like doing recipe videos
3:20
I mean it's perfect. Show yourself dicing onions. I could I don't know. I was
3:26
kind of I can't even imagine yet how it actually works, how it can get both that
3:32
and your face at the same time. It seems shocking. Well, I mean it's kind of like
3:36
a three sixty camera. I don't know if you ever used three sixty camera. I doubt you probably ever have no like ever have. They have like the super
3:43
ultra wide angles and and then they use software to basically stitch the two
3:51
different cameras on both sides of the camera unit together to create like a
3:56
three sixty image and and so they're basically able to even though the plane
4:01
of the camera is well, how do I how do I describe this when you're holding the
4:07
camera in your hand? If it's if it's looking forward, you can basically see
4:11
your feet down at the bottom, because the camera is just so wide and that must be what they have going on here and then they use software right to to to de
4:19
skew it. So it looks like a normal image, because otherwise it be all crazy and like bent like I just thought that was a wild wild feature. Yeah, me too, and I'm
4:29
still like not totally sure how people are going to use it. I mean, if you're
4:33
an educator, maybe there be like a reason to actually there you go. If you're an educator and you're like doing like a math problem or something and
4:40
you're writing something down and you want to show people what you're doing like that can be useful. How about this? You're a
4:47
tech podcaster and you want to show somebody an apple watch. There you go
4:51
oh which apple watch mode, which we have proved on this show is impossible to do
4:56
it's impossible to show someone the face of your apple watch while you're
5:00
wearing your watch. So now you just you just hold it out right in front of you. Yeah, everyone could see it. I mean it's if nothing else it's perfect for that
5:08
Okay, we're we're thinking small here. This is a this is a massive feature
5:13
okay, so not not only does it do all the stuff that we just said, but but now
5:18
you have a portable camera that you could take away from your Mac or detach
5:23
from your Mac in place, probably somewhere within the realm of where you are. So if you want a better camera angle, you'll be able to do that. So
5:31
that makes it huge right not to mention until I'd say in the last two years
5:36
apple's webcams have been horrendous, truly pieces of garbage. I mean it's
5:41
unbelievable to me that I have a like a four thousand dollar math book pro and
5:46
the webcam looks like something from the the mid aughts right that is truly
5:52
embarrassing and it took it took covid and everyone the shift in in in work
5:57
from everyone in the office to everyone at home for apple to finally finally
6:01
change that, and so you have you have I'm going to guess eighty percent of the
6:06
Max out there have really terrible webcams and and what apple has essentially done is allow you to bypass those horrible webcams with one of the
6:13
best webcams on the market today. So this is a huge feature and I think it's
6:18
going to get used by tons and tons of people, and I know that the iphone has
6:24
to be within the vicinity of the mac in order for the feature to be active, but
6:28
I'm going to guess you could be within like a few feet right, maybe maybe even farther out, and so you could literally just place your camera or your phone
6:35
wherever you want and then be in a meeting, be in a face time call and have
6:40
really beautiful picture. So I think that's a massively practical practical feature. It's one that I'll probably use all the time, because you know I
6:49
don't have any nice webcams on any of my portable Max yeah. Well, I'll tell you
6:54
that was definitely one of the things you're like wow. That is not something that I thought of you know. I was completely surprised by it up to the
7:02
point of like is this even a joke. I can't believe it louis live here on the
7:07
show. We have our first super chat, which I forgot that I even enabled. Do
7:12
you even know what a super chat is louis? I don't know. Should I be worried? Super chat allows your your many fans to pay to insult you like no, I'm so a
7:24
super chat is a youtube feature that allows people to pay money and then
7:28
their comment like gets highlighted in the in the chat so that you can see it
7:33
and I'm going to read this. This is from rapido twenty. Now I didn't write
7:37
this comment, so I'm going to just read it as is. I can see I can see it's a
7:41
little. It's a little controversial, but I'm still going to read it. This is
7:45
from rapido twenty. He says why haven't prosser and sand the two most prolific
7:49
leakers admit they were wrong over months with dozens of vids with the air
7:55
with white bezels and pastel colors. So I can't comment to exactly what they
8:00
spoke about because there's been so many rumors floating around that it's
8:03
been hard to keep track, but I feel like I can. I can talk generally about what
8:09
has happened in the apple ecosystem when it comes to leakers, and I think
8:16
that because there's been there's been way fewer leaks than we've had in
8:20
previous years. I feel like and unfortunately for us for people that
8:25
talk about this stuff. It makes it hard to put out interesting content because
8:29
a lot of people they just want to hear about the newest iphone like that's
8:33
like pretty much all the leakers talk about. I feel like is like the new the
8:39
iphone what it's going to look like and and then they'll eventually they'll cover a max and an ipad and stuff, but in order to draw people in, they have
8:45
to have renders like that's become like the big thing is you have to look at
8:50
the rumors that are out there and then create a render based on the rumors, and I think that I think that because those renders draw in a lot of viewers
9:00
people have become more and more free form in their interpretation of what
9:07
they think apple is going to release because they know it gets clicks and I'm not even speaking about process. I'm just think I'm just speaking about
9:13
people across the entire ecosystem of apple rumors and they know that at
9:18
creating a interesting render is going to bring people in and oftentimes those
9:22
renders are based off of rumors that don't have a ton of information, and so
9:28
they're left to extrapolate. There's a lot of extrapolating going on out there
9:33
and so I think you end up with situations where people are pushing renders because the renders draw people in, but the renders are not accurate
9:41
and they were never accurate, even though they make for interesting visual fodder, because if you don't have a render, it's hard to it's hard to talk
9:47
about something. People don't want to hear you just talk about something. Believe me, they don't want to just hear you talk about something, a lot of
9:53
visual example, and so they're motivated to create these really beautiful examples and a lot of these render creators like Ian's elbow are very
10:03
talented. I mean they're essentially creating these these hyper realistic looking mockups and they look beautiful and and people aren't interested in
10:13
them. So they click on them and so they you know get created. So that's what I
10:17
think is going on all right. We got one from deadliest as well. Before we move
10:21
on, he says hello. Oh, that was perfect deadliest, no real comment here. Just a
10:28
day one list. Oh, we got a day one gov club here. I can't believe from
10:32
deadliest that wanted to show your appreciation. Thanks for everything. Keep on kicking. I can't say that last word. I'll say kicking bums all right
10:41
Thank you for those super chats. That's that's cool. Those are the first two
10:45
that we got because I actually forgot that we even turn that on. So if you
10:50
want to pay me to read your comment on the show, as long as it's not as long
10:54
as it's not something that I can't read, I will. I will read it. So there you go
10:59
that's continuity camera. That was completely unexpected and one of the more mind blowing features that I think apple released the one thing. The one
11:07
last thing I will say about this is I have seen this in action. Lewis virtually
11:12
no lag at all like it's almost a real time camera. It's like when you're
11:17
moving your hands around the the image captured on your iphone is almost
11:21
exactly what you see on your on your Max screen. It works that quickly. So
11:28
pretty tight feature so far and something I think a lot of people going
11:33
to use
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