Thread

1. tgsovlerkhgsel · 1789535685 · focus · HN ↗

   This is really clever from Apple. The journalist use case is just the PR story. This will be really useful for identity verification and insurance apps, and has the potential to shift from "you need a smartphone to be able to live normally" to "you need an iPhone to be able to live normally".

   There are already plenty of insurances that require you to submit claims through a smartphone app that tries to essentially do this by capturing sensor metadata etc. - those don't need to be nation-state resilient, just Joe the Crackhead Insurance Scammer resilient, so this works. Likewise, more and more things online require identity verification (either officially or disguised as age verification).

   Edit: And while "a nation state actor can spoof this" is a problem for the journalism use case, the insurance/ID verification use cases are perfectly fine with anything that raises the bar but could be bypassed with enough effort. Also, the journalism use case suffers from the same fundamental issue all of these use cases suffer from: People will "verify" the picture by looking at the repost of a screenshot of the verification UI, not by verifying the original themselves.

   1. Topfi · 1789543520 · focus · HN ↗

      > […] the potential to shift from "you need a smartphone to be able to live normally" to "you need an iPhone to be able to live normally".

      Why do you believe Android manufacturers and SOC makers like Qualcomm won’t be able to offer a similar solution?

      1. rickdeckard · 1789544175 · focus · HN ↗

         Not the OP, but yes, other vendors will be able to support that as well. But a camera sensor that has

         1. a public/private key exchanged during device-production (production-cost),

         2. the capability to reboot in a cryptographic mode (R&D / component cost) and

         3. a cloud-service which then processes the raw data to create a JPG (operational cost)

         comes at a premium. Why should this premium be applied on a 99 USD Smartphone?

         Which is my whole puzzle on this vector: If the big benefit is for insurance/ID-verification, which apply cost-saving by offloading their process to the untrusted customer, how much they can offload this by requiring their customer to own a 1000+ USD smartphone to provide THEIR service...?

         The most I can imagine is insurances offloading their work to OTHER companies, NOT trusting them and therefore requiring them to own a 1000+ USD Smartphone. But even then, why not use a third party app that also runs on a 3y old iPhone and a 99 USD Android device...?

         1. Topfi · 1789544919 · focus · HN ↗

            We have 99USD smartphones with 1080p+ AMOLEDs, massive 5k amp batteries and very performant SOCs (e.g. Galaxy A16) among other costly, but not vital niceties. I struggle to see how cost could be a factor here.

            1. rickdeckard · 1789547510 · focus · HN ↗

               > I struggle to see how cost could be a factor here.

               Okay. In good faith, I'll go with you:

               If COST is not a factor, why does the Galaxy A16 still have no OIS (Optical Image Stabilization)?

               Unlike this trusted-imaging service, OIS would be a feature for increased user-experience which is highly-matured and exists in Smartphones since 2013.

               The answer is COST: A camera-module with OIS is a more-expensive component than a module without it.

               And that's ONLY the component-cost: A OIS-camera doesn't come with increased cost in device-production (it's just another component to place and assemble), no increased cost in R&D (the tech is very mature, all the SW is there) and no running costs (there are no cloud-services required to operate OIS)

               1. coldtea · 1789559345 · focus · HN ↗

                  >If COST is not a factor, why does the Galaxy A16 still have no OIS (Optical Image Stabilization)?

                  Because it's just not that important, phones and cameras have also used digital stabilization via cropping since forever.

                  1. rickdeckard · 1789566255 · focus · HN ↗

                     Those are two fundamentally different things:

                     1. OIS (optical stabilization) ensures that the light photons consistently hit the same pixel, removing the blur caused by camera-shake during exposure.

                     2. EIS (electrical stabilization) via cropping compensates camera-shake on video(!) recording by applying the same shake to the crop-canvas within the frame.

                     --> EIS can fix a shaky video but not a blurry photo.

                     1. coldtea · 1789571047 · focus · HN ↗

                        It's 2026, with cleaner high ISOs even in phone sized sensors giving the ability to raise the shutter speed as needed, we hadn't had much of an issue with blurry photos for a decade now, with or without OIS. There have been several expensive cameras with no OIS, like Ricoh GR and (and v2), or ZVE10 (and v2).

                        It's video where people care about these days. Does anybody complain about blurry S12 photos?

                        1. rickdeckard · 1789578160 · focus · HN ↗

                           Might be boring, but in 2026 "clean high ISOs" in phone-sized sensors mainly comes from image post-processing (stuff like multi-frame merging is done even when shooting "RAW"). Post-processing requires a stable (albeit noisy) image, otherwise it'll be garbage-in/garbage-out.

                           --> OIS actually became MORE important for Smartphones in the past years, because while post-processing produces better and better results, it massively depends on usable input data. OIS is one of the very few methods to improve the INPUT-quality for post-processing.

                           >"There have been several expensive cameras with no OIS, like Ricoh GR and (and v2), or ZVE10 (and v2)."

                           That's a apples and oranges comparison. A quick Google search tells me the size of a pixel on the Ricoh GR sensor is 4.81 µm, which is ~8 times larger than the pixel in recent smartphones (~0,6µm). It is not only physically capable to capture 8x more light, it is also much less affected by minor shaking than sensors with smaller pixel-sizes.

                           >"Does anybody complain about blurry S12 photos?"

                           Not sure what's a "S12", but:

                           - On flagship phones with OIS: Not so much. Maybe in low-light scenarios, because, you know, not much light...

                           - On cheaper devices without OIS: Yes! Oh yes, constantly.

                           People assume that the picture-quality of a e.g. 2026 Galaxy A16 must be comparable or better than the picture of a 8-year old Galaxy S9. It's not, the S9 is still better in everyday shooting.

                           Just check user-reviews of mass-tier smartphones without OIS, like Samsung Galaxy A series...

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