With the upcoming release of iOS 18.1, iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max users will be able to capture 'spatial photos' directly from your device. While initially announced for the iPhone 16 lineup, Apple has extended the spatial photos feature to last year's iPhone 15 Pro models as well, according to a recent report by the Apple-centric news platform 9to5Mac.

What are spatial photos?

Spatial photos are 3D images that add a new level of depth and realism to your shots. While they can be taken in iPhone 16 as well as iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, you will need to use Apple's Vision Pro headset to view them properly. With the headset, you can get an immersive, three-dimensional viewing of the 'spatial' photo.

How to capture spatial photos

As per the 9to5Mac article, once iOS 18.1 is released, iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max users will see a new 'Spatial' option in their Camera app. This option will make it easy to switch between capturing spatial photos and spatial videos. 

Apple has stated that for best results, you should keep your iPhone in landscape mode and stable while capturing. Also, a spatial photo will take up about 5 MB of space on your phone.

While the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max already support spatial video recording, with the upcoming update to iOS 18, they can add spatial photos to their multimedia toolkit as well. Apple also recently released visionOS 2, which enables users to turn any image in their library into a spatial photo—further enhancing the viewing experience on the Vision Pro.

When you can get the feature?

iOS 18.1 is currently available in developer beta and is expected to officially launch in October 2024 alongside Apple's first Apple Intelligence features.

This update makes the powerful camera capabilities of the iPhone 15 Pro series even better. Furthermore, this might also give iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max users a reason to maybe hold off on the upgrade to iPhone 16 for now. Only time will tell what Apple users will end up preferring.