Apple Wins Patent For Socially Distant Group Selfie Tech

COVID-19 has forced people everywhere to stay away from each other within a safe distance. This distance protocol, popularly known as “social distancing,” effectively prohibits people from doing many things the way they used to. One of the things people can't do anymore due to this is what everybody fondly knows as group selfies.

Thankfully, a new patent awarded to Apple will give way for a new kind of group selfie the company calls “synthetic group selfies.” These are selfies taken by groups of people who are physically apart from each other, artificially arranged so they will look like they're literally together the moment the photo was taken.

Per the patent (first spotted by Patently Apple), the technology will allow several users to take photos or videos using different devices, then use software to combine them to produce synthetic group selfies. The images that will be combined can be a composition of still images, pre-recorded videos or livestreamed videos.

The resulting group image will look like how the patent illustration below describes it. Participants' photos will be arranged in such as way that they will look like they are gathered together as a group.

The patent adds that the software will allow the users to save the individual selfies so they will be able to edit them as needed. It will allow the users to adjust the position of every person included in the group selfie, so that the resulting group image will be according to their preference.

The image below shows how users will be able to edit the group selfie so that participants will be positioned just how the users of the feature want.

Those who are worrying about their device not being able to handle the feature (such as when they are using an older, lower-specced device as compared to others in the group selfie) need not worry about it. The processing will be distributed to all devices involved:

“The processing of individual selfies to remove background portions of individual selfie images can be distributed amongst multiple devices to reduce the amount of processing required to be performed by an individual device.”

The new software will allow users to take group photos as if social distancing didn't exist. The patent, however, does not mention any release date, just like other patents.