iOS 10 was announced yesterday and while Apple did go over some of the major changes and new features that they would be introducing to the game, they also glossed over some other details that we reckon might be just as interesting to users. One of those features is the ability to shoot in RAW.
For those unfamiliar with RAW photos, essentially these are photos that have not been compressed or pre-processed by your camera. This format is usually favored by professional photographers as it allows them a great degree of control over how an image is edited later on. The only downside is that RAW files tend to be many times larger than regular JPEGs.
That being said, Apple did confirm RAW support during one of their workshops in which they noted that it will only work with the rear camera, it can shoot in both RAW and JPEG at the same time (thus generating two files), and that it will be stored in Adobe’s DNG format, so editing it with the likes of Lightroom should not be an issue.
Developers will also have to manually implement the feature in their own apps, meaning that they shouldn’t expect RAW format to be automatically enabled on devices that run iOS 10. The bad news is that it looks like only Apple’s newer iPhones and iPads will support the format. This includes the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, SE, and the 9.7-inch iPad (oddly enough no mention of the iPad Pro). It is also unclear if Apple will bring the feature to its default iOS camera.