Apple was recently the subject of an episode of 60 Minutes on CBS and while the programme covered a wide range of topics, such as Apple’s employing of workers in China instead of the US, to skimping on paying taxes, one surprising fact cut through it all: Apple hires a team of 800 people who solely work on the iPhone camera, explaining why your Instagram posts are so good. Sadly it can’t fix the heinous hashtags yet.
The team of engineers and specialists are led by Graham Townsend, the Senior Director of Camera Hardware at Apple. In the video he demonstrates how the team at Apple built a workspace that can simulate various different conditions, from sunsets to lousy indoor lighting, all in an effort to calibrate the iPhone’s camera to perfection.
Graham Townsend: Go to bright bright noon. And there you go. Sunset now. There you go. So, there’s very different types of quality of lighting, from a morning, bright sunshine, for instance, the noonday light. And then finally maybe–
Charlie Rose: Sunset, dinner–
Graham Townsend: We can simulate all those here. Believe it or not, to capture one image, 24 billion operations go on.
He further states that the iPhone’s camera module is made up of over 200 individual parts and goes on to demonstrate the micro suspension system.
“This whole sus– autofocus motor here is suspended on four wires. And you’ll see them coming in. And here we are. Four– These are 40-micron wires, less than half a human hair’s width. And that holds that whole suspension and moves it in X and Y. So that allows us to stabilize for the hand shake.”
– Graham Townsend, Senior Director of Camera Hardware at Apple Inc.
It comes as no surprise that Apple focuses a lot of attention on the iPhone’s camera, it is after all something they revolve entire campaigns around (You should see quite a few billboards showcasing this when driving down Sheikh Zayed Road.)
Source: CBS
