On the left is the camera unit with (left) its metal shell removed its lens and electromagnetic coils (middle), and the sensor with the bracket removed (right). Similarly, Apple states, closed-loop autofocus uses magnets to detect gravity and vibrations, shifting the lens back where you originally wanted it to be. To reduce image motion, and the resulting blur, the lens moves according to the angle of the gyroscope. With OIS, a gyroscope senses that the camera moved. OIS lets you take sharp photos even if you accidentally move the camera. They are hardware features that compensate for your shaky hands. Why motorcycles break smartphone camerasĪpple’s support document lays out exactly what’s failing inside cycle-shaken cameras: optical image stabilization (OIS) and autofocus (AF). That scooter might only have a 50-150cc engine, but this impossibly hip person is riding all day and night, and visibly not using a vibration-dampening mount.
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Relax, it’s iPhone 13 (and it’s full of tiny, sensitive moving camera parts).Īnd then, just over a month after that notice, a young man rode the heck out of a scooter with a mounted iPhone 13 in the device’s introduction ad. A few months later, in September 2021, Apple published its warning about “ Exposure to vibrations, like those generated by high-powered motorcycle engines.” It recommends a vibration dampening mount, only on lesser-powered bikes, and not for “prolonged periods.” The Apple Store employee, unprompted, asked Chen if he rode a motorcycle. “For some reason, when I took photos outside, the image was shaking a lot.” He recorded the psychedelic viewfinder experience (3MB video) and took the still-under-warranty phone to an Apple Store. “Just a single ride broke the camera,” Chen wrote.
He knew the risks, but thought his seemingly more durable iPhone 12 could survive a brief stint of navigation. Chen/Twitter ( archived).Ĭhen later upgraded to an iPhone 12, and to a larger, more powerful motorcycle. Chen’s iPhone-camera-assaulting Suzuki TU250X. Chen later searched and found lots of other motorcyclists with vibration-broken cameras (we know some similarly disappointed mountain bikers). He took the XS to his favorite phone fixer, who replaced the camera. And when I was taking pictures, the phone was making this buzzing sound, and it could no longer focus on a subject,” Chen wrote. “I remember riding to Pacifica one day and hopping off the bike to take some pictures at Mori Point. He mostly took 20-mile-ish touring rides, with occasional freeway segments.
The bike is “super lightweight and not very powerful, max speed of 70mph,” Chen wrote in an online chat. In 2020, Chen used his iPhone XS to navigate on a Suzuki TU250X. Chen, lead consumer technology writer for The New York Times. Two rides, two dead iPhone camerasįew people know the cycle-camera conflict better than Brian X. Ask two people whose motorcycles have killed three different smartphone cameras.
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They probably don’t go far enough in warning you against a motorcycle-mounted smartphone, be it Apple or Android or almost any modern kind. In case you’re wondering if Apple is being over-protective: they are not.
At least not without a specialized, vibration-dampening mount. But it’s important to point out that, no matter what kind of two-wheel motorized contraption you’re riding, what kind of smartphone you’re holding, however amazing your day is going: do not mount your phone to your motorcycle. An iPhone 13 ad showing off exactly the thing Apple tells you not to do with an iPhone 13 (printed in not-quite-obvious text at the bottom).Ī gigantic corporation having two divisions with contradictory messaging is nothing new.