Apple’s VP of camera software engineering Jon McCormack gave Nilay Patel a quote about how Apple views photography in our modern age. Here’s what he said:
Here’s our view of what a photograph is. The way we like to think of it is that it’s a personal celebration of something that really, actually happened.
Whether that’s a simple thing like a fancy cup of coffee that’s got some cool design on it, all the way through to my kid’s first steps, or my parents’ last breath, It’s something that really happened. It’s something that is a marker in my life, and it’s something that deserves to be celebrated.
Federico Viticci wrote what I would have written, had I been more online this weekend:
“Something that really, actually happened” is a great baseline compared to Samsung’s nihilistic definition (nothing is real) and Google’s relativistic one (everyone has their own memories).
I like Apple’s realistic definition of what a photo is – right now, I feel like it comes from a place of respect and trust. But I have to wonder how malleable that definition will retroactively become to make room for Clean Up and future generative features of Apple Intelligence.