How Cameras Could Decide the iPhone’s Fate

iPhone owners could soon use the device’s camera for more than just photography. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

Snapchat drew some ridicule when it called itself a camera company during its IPO process, but the social networking hotshot might be onto something.

In looking at what the future might entail for Apple, one analyst sees the iPhone camera playing a big role. “We believe the smartphone camera’s singular role as a passive image capturing device will end soon,” Oppenheimer analyst Andrew Uerkwitz wrote Thursday. In the future, he says, Apple could begin using the iPhone camera for security, gestures, and, most interestingly, contextual awareness.

The iPhone 8 could usher in the early stages of the transformation. The new device is expected to feature “depth sensing,” which enables a camera to get a 3D awareness of what’s in front of it.

Initially, depth sensing on smartphones can improve biometric authentication — people could use facial recognition to log into their devices, instead of a fingerprint scan. Also in the near term, the new technology could enable more sophisticated augmented-reality functions, like the ability to add smarter live overlays over photos and videos, something Uerkwitz calls “a more sophisticated version of the Snapchat filters.”

In the long run, though, smartphone cameras could determine where exactly you are and what exactly you’re doing — and perhaps better anticipate what you want. Such “contextual computing” applications might sound unnerving , but they also represent big opportunities for the companies that manage to do them right.

Given a slowdown in smartphone sales and people holding their devices for longer, the industry needs a new catalyst for growth, Uerkwitz wrote. “We believe 3D sensing, or contextual computing in general, is one such catalyst.”

Big Picture: Smartphone cameras have the potential to drive the next big change in computing.