28MP shots on your iPhone 5

Apple iOS 6 Panorama mode

The Panorama mode in iOS 6. Photo by Apple.

A three-foot-long printed photo — from a smartphone? That might now be possible, with iOS6’s new Panorama mode from Apple, running on their new iPhone 5.

“The new panorama feature lets you capture jaw-dropping panorama images of up to 28 megapixels by simply moving the camera across a scene in one smooth motion.”
— Apple press release, Sep 12, 2012

Released to the public on September 19, 2012, Apple iOS 6 — the operating system for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad — includes a feature which allows you to automatically combine many consecutive shots into one.

“With one smooth motion you can shoot up to an impressive 240 degrees. The gyroscope, A6 chip, and Camera app work together to create one seamless, high-resolution panorama up to 28 megapixels.”
— Apple

Although Apple has not yet released sample photos or resolution details, they do state an image “up to 28 megapixels.” Their example (above) has an aspect ratio of 3:87:1. That translates (for a 28MP image) to 10,409 × 2,689 pixels. Printed at 300dpi, such an image would be over 34" wide, almost three feet (88 cm). Pretty impressive for something so small, that’s not even designed primarily to be a camera¹.

“You can take very wide photographs just by holding up the camera and turning it round across the scene in front of you and the software in the phone then stitches the picture together into one very wide image.”
— Shane Richmond, Head of Technology, The Telegraph (UK)

Note: The iPhone 5 camera is 3264 × 2448 pixels.

Sources: MacRumors, PetaPixel. Image from Apple.