14 DAY TRIAL // The new Portrait Lighting effects available on the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X could run on previous iPhone models as well, but Apple has implemented a restriction that blocks previous-generation devices from enabling it.
This is what developer Steven Troughton-Smith has discovered after running a few tests, explaining that it all seems to be just a software limitation that Apple introduced to keep Portrait Lighting an exclusive feature of the latest iPhone models.
As part of his test, Troughton-Smith transferred a photo taken with the iPhone 7 Plus Portrait mode to his Mac to make a series of metadata changes, only to then upload the tweaked photo to his iPhone X.
Software limitation needed because of older hardware
When opening the image on the iPhone X, iOS actually launched the new Portrait Lighting interface and not the classic Portrait mode that was used to take the photo. Furthermore, it appears that sending an iPhone X photo taken with Portrait Lighting to the iPhone 7 Plus also triggers the new interface to show up despite being an older iPhone model, though the same UI is not available natively on the device.
“If you AirDrop that photo back to the iPhone 7 Plus now it shows the Portrait Lighting UI, and lets you change mode. So Portrait Lighting is 100% an artificial software limitation. 7 Plus photos can have it, 7 Plus can do it,” the developer explains.
In other words, older iPhone models can actually support at least part of the new Portrait Lighting UI, only that Apple has restricted it to the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X.
Apple connoisseur John Gruber says this is all because of performance matters, as the A10 chip available on the iPhone 7 Plus cannot handle the process of taking photos with Portrait Lighting, though it has what it takes to offer post-shooting effects. Apple, however, decided to pull it completely because the device couldn’t offer the full experience as the latest models.