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Apple has announced on its Apple Support forum that motorcycle’s high-powered engines can “degrade” the camera performance. The tech giant advises to “avoid exposing your iPhone to extended high-amplitude vibrations.” Apple further reveals that small-volume or electric engines, such as mopeds and scooters, may lead to comparatively lower-amplitude vibrations, hence, will not affect the iPhone camera as much.
According to Apple, when users place the iPhones on a bike’s handlebar or chassis, these vibrations get transmitted, degrading the image and video quality. These vibrations affect the optical image stabilization (OIS) and closed-loop autofocus of the camera. In fact, “long-term direct exposure to high-amplitude vibrations within certain frequency ranges may degrade the performance of these systems and lead to reduced image quality for photos and videos.”
Apple explains, “If you accidentally move a camera when you take a picture, the resulting image can be blurry. To prevent this, some iPhone models have optical image stabilization (OIS). OIS lets you take sharp photos even if you accidentally move the camera. With OIS, a gyroscope senses that the camera moved. To reduce image motion and the resulting blur, the lens moves according to the angle of the gyroscope.
Additionally, some iPhone models have closed-loop autofocus (AF).2 Closed-loop AF resists the effects of gravity and vibration to preserve sharp focus in stills, videos, and panoramas. With closed-loop AF, on-board magnetic sensors measure gravity and vibration effects and determine the lens position so that the compensating motion can be set accurately.”
OIS technology is available on iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone 7 later, including iPhone SE (2nd generation).On the other hand, closed-loop AF is available on iPhone XS and later, including iPhone SE (2nd generation).
