Why Can’t Older Iphones Be Connected as a Webcam in macOS Ventura?
What’s behind it?
At the end of October, we saw the release of the anticipated macOS 13 Ventura operating system to the public. This system was introduced to the world in June 2022, specifically during the WWDC developer conference, when Apple revealed its main strengths.
However, in addition to the changes related to the native applications Messages, Mail, Safari or the new way of multitasking Stage Manager, we have also seen another great attraction. Starting with macOS 13 Ventura, the iPhone can be used as a wireless webcam.
Thanks to this, every Apple user can get top-notch image quality using the lens on the phone itself. What’s more, everything works virtually instantly and without the need for annoying cables.
Keep your Mac and iPhone close by and then select your iPhone as the webcam in the specific app. At first glance, this sounds sensational, and as it has now turned out, Apple is reaping success with the novelty.
Unfortunately, the feature isn’t available to everyone, and the need to install macOS 13 Ventura and iOS 16 aren’t the only requirements. At the same time, you must have an iPhone XR or newer.
Why can’t I use older iPhones?
So let’s shed some light on a rather interesting question. Why can’t you use older iPhones in macOS 13 Ventura as a webcam? First of all, there is one important thing to mention. Unfortunately, Apple has never commented on this issue, nor does it explain anywhere why this limitation is there.
So, in the end, it’s just speculation. Anyway, there are several possibilities why, for example, iPhone X, iPhone 8 and older do not support this rather exciting novelty. Let’s quickly summarize them. As we mentioned above, there are several possible explanations.
According to some Apple experts, the absence is explained by the absence of some audio features. Others, for a change, lean towards the fact that the reason may be the inferior performance, which stems from the use of older chipsets. After all, the iPhone XR, the oldest supported phone, has been on the market for over four years.
In that time, performance has rocketed forward, so there’s a definite chance that older models couldn’t keep up. However, the Neural Engine seems to be the most likely explanation. This is part of chipsets and plays an extremely important role in machine learning.
Starting with the iPhone XS/XR, the Neural Engine has seen some decent improvements that have taken its capabilities several steps forward. On the other hand, the iPhone X/8, a year older than the iPhone X, have this chip, but they are not equal in their capabilities.
While the iPhone X’s Neural Engine had two cores and could take care of 600 billion operations per second, the iPhone XS/XR had eight cores with a total potential to process up to 5 trillion operations per second. On the other hand, some also mention that Apple decided to use this limitation to motivate Apple users to switch to newer devices. However, the Neural Engine theory seems more likely.
The importance of Neural Engine
Although many Apple fans don’t realize it, the Neural Engine, which tends to be part of Apple’s A-Series and Apple Silicon chipsets, plays an extremely important role. This processor is behind every operation related to artificial intelligence or machine learning capabilities.
In the case of Apple products, it takes care of, for example, the Live Text function (available from iPhone XR), which works based on optical character recognition and can therefore recognise text in photos, even better images, where it improves portraits in particular or the correct functioning of the Siri voice assistant.
So as we mentioned above, the differences in the Neural Engine seem to be the main reason older iPhones can’t be used as a webcam in macOS 13 Ventura.
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