Yesterday, Apple announced their brand new M1-powered iPad Pro. One of the features unveiled with the tablet include a feature called Center Stage. This appeared to be a FaceTime feature that can track the user’s face and allows the camera to “follow” the subject and try to keep them centered in the frame at all times.
However, according to MacStories’ Federico Viticci, it seems that this feature won’t be exclusive to FaceTime or the iPad Pro. Instead, Viticci claims that this is going to be an API made available to developers who might choose to take advantage of the feature in their own apps, so that might be something to look forward to.
Center Stage, the new iPad Pro feature that uses the front-facing camera to automatically follow the user during video calls, is *not* exclusive to FaceTime. Third-party apps can use Center Stage and there'll be an API available to toggle it on/off. #AppleEvent
— Federico Viticci (@viticci) April 20, 2021
For those unfamiliar with how it works, basically it relies on a wide-angle lens that capture the information about the scene, so in reality, it isn’t that the camera is moving to track the person, but rather it pans within the available information to try and position the user in the center. This means that if you run out of range of the wide-angle camera, it’s not as if your iPad will magically start to track you.
It is a bit of tech trickery involved, but it is pretty clever and some might be able to appreciate it. We’re not sure which apps will take advantage of it, but it might be worth looking forward to.