Where the iPhone Camera Needs to Focus Next
We need better ways to feel present on video calls — and that means eye contact
Unless you’ve lived under a rock the past month, there was no way to avoid seeing the photos taken on the new iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro. They’re impressive, to say the least, yet I’m still left feeling like they could be so much more.
As the cameras on our smartphones keep getting better and better, I wonder if the outcomes they serve are truly improving? Particularly when it comes to the bane of modern office life: video calls.
Video calls, like FaceTime, are taking over how we communicate with one another. In fact, WhatsApp released a report in 2017 stating that their users make a staggering 55 million video calls per day along with a total of over 340 million video calling minutes per day. Facebook Messenger released similarly massive numbers sharing that 17 billion video chats were made in 2017 alone. Those numbers are probably much larger now and even more impressive when you think of all of the various video calling tools out there, like FaceTime, Duo, Google Hangout, and others.
It’s been proven that eye contact produces a powerful, subconscious sense of connection that extends even to drawn…
