[Davyo]

I'll be swapping out my Galaxy S7 for the iPhone 7 or 7 Plus, but I'm still perplexed as to why Apple does not offer the option to shoot in landscape 16x9 mode ?

As far as I know, ALL other phones can do a landscape 16x9 shooting mode, including my Galaxy S7.

But the new iPhone 7 still just offers the same old square and extra square shooting options.

The iPhone screens are 16x9 ratio but taking a picture with any iPhone in landscape mode still just gives you a square or extra square picture with wasted space (black bars on each side of the picture).

Am I not getting something here ?

Cheers
Davyo

[MonkeyJunky]

Post photo editing within the camera application allows for 16:9 ratio cropping, which is all that any of the competitors phones do when you take a picture, they just do it at the time of the photo instead of afterwards. The truth is, the iPhone gives you a more robust option set in that it allows you to retain a normal version of the photo AND the ability to configure the aspect ratio after taking it vs. simply having the singular sized picture taken real time.

If doing it in real time is something you simply must have in order to feel adequate in relation to the competitive phones though, there are a plethora of applications available on the iPhone that allow for such (which should show you that there's really no missing "feature" here, its just a different approach to the aspect ratio cropping).

[Davyo]

Post photo editing within the camera application allows for 16:9 ratio cropping, which is all that any of the competitors phones do when you take a picture, they just do it at the time of the photo instead of afterwards. The truth is, the iPhone gives you a more robust option set in that it allows you to retain a normal version of the photo AND the ability to configure the aspect ratio after taking it vs. simply having the singular sized picture taken real time.

If doing it in real time is something you simply must have in order to feel adequate in relation to the competitive phones though, there are a plethora of applications available on the iPhone that allow for such (which should show you that there's really no missing "feature" here, its just a different approach to the aspect ratio cropping).

Yes, photos taken with an iPhone can be cropped, but I've just always found it curious that iPhone does not offer a native 16x9 landscape shooting mode.

All my Notes 1 thru 5 shot still images natively in 16x9, same thing with all my Galaxy phones up until the S7 series.
In a recent change with Samsung the Galaxy S7, S7 Edge and Note 7 now shoot natively in 4x3 but do offer the option to shoot natively in 16x9 if selected in the camera settings.
There is a big plus to being able to shoot in 16x9 landscape mode in real time as you can frame exactly what you are shooting while you are taking the shot and no cropping is required.
I own and use both Samsung's and iPhones, as an example, if I'm taking a picture of a group of friends sitting on a long couch and I'm shooting with my Samsung in landscape 16x9 everyone on the couch is going to be in the shot and no cropping is needed, if I'm taking the same shot with my iPhone I have to stand back quite a few feet away to get everyone in the same shot, and then after cropping the shot taken with the iPhone into a 16x9 image the cropped picture looks like a pixelated cropped picture.
I've just always found it an odd choice that iPhone only offers a 4x3 aspect ratio while every other phone made offers a landscape 16x9 ratio.
Although there is good news perhaps as I just read that the iPhone 7 Plus might be offering 16x9 landscape mode with the software update that will take place after the release on the 7 Plus on the 16th.
Cheers
Davyo

[MonkeyJunky]

The iPhone captures the same field of view that it would using a "native" 16:9 ratio, it just allows you to crop to that using the app after the fact. Again, the fact that the 3rd party applications can shoot native 16:9 ratio photos on the iPhone should tell you that it isn't a missing feature, its just a different way of providing the same result (but giving you the option to have two sizes to choose from instead of being limited to just the 16:9 ratio photo after taking the picture).

And I'd be willing to put money on the fact that the post-adjusted 16:9 photo taken with the iPhone has no visual degradation vs. the native aspect ratio originally taken. I am a photographer by trade, so I have experience with a multitude of cameras and have a pretty extensive knowledge of what most of the higher end smart phones are capable of when it comes to aspect ratios (especially in terms of quality).

At the end of the day, 16:9 is really a more video oriented aspect ratio anyways, but is achieved on the iPhone just as it is on other smart phones, it's simply that the native camera app on the iPhone affords the user to do it after the fact, with the same exact results you'd get on another device using a "native" 16:9 orientation.