Live Photos Shown Off In New Hands-On Video - MacRumorsOpen MenuShow RoundupsShow Forums menuVisit ForumsOpen Sidebar
Skip to Content

Live Photos Shown Off In New Hands-On Video

One of the brand new features for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus is Live Photos, which captures an additional 3 seconds of video around a still image and plays it through when a user 3D Touches the photo. We went hands on with the new feature and experimented with it.

Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.

To use Live Photos, a user just has to take a normal photo when the "live" icon in the upper center of the screen is lit up. The iPhone automatically captures 1.5 seconds of video before and after the photo and stitches it all together. Because Live Photos combines video and still images, the new format takes up double the space a regular photo would.

While reviewers were largely positive on Live Photos, first impressions from users haven't been as kind. MacRumors forum member kungxpao said that he turned the feature off after a few test shots. However, some users see potential in the feature, like fellow forum member Conan86.

Live Photo is a great feature when you create them intentionally. I hope Apple would allow us to remove accidental "live" portions of a photo as I probably wouldn't hold 3 seconds to take a photo every single time.

Only the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus can create Live Photos, but they are viewable on all iOS 9 devices and Macs running OS X El Capitan. Eventually, Live Photos will also be shareable on social media services like Facebook and Instagram.

Related Forum: iPhone

Popular Stories

iOS 27 Next to iPhone

Here's When iOS 27 Rolls Out Today in Every Time Zone [Update: It's Out]

Sunday September 13, 2026 3:00 am PDT by
Update 10:04 a.m.: iOS 27 is rolling out now, though it may take a bit for all users to see it, so keep checking! Apple is about to release iOS 27, which will finally deliver more advanced Siri AI capabilities as well as a variety of other refinements, improvements, and new features to iPhones. It's Apple's biggest software update of the year, and Apple announced at Wednesday's iPhone event...
iOS 27 Icon iPhone

iOS 27 Available Now With These 8 New Features

Monday September 14, 2026 9:00 am PDT by
Update — 10 a.m. Pacific Time: Apple has released iOS 27. During its iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo event last week, Apple announced that iOS 27 will be released widely on Monday, September 14. iOS 27 should be available around 10 a.m. Pacific Time / 1 p.m. Eastern Time today via the Settings app, under General → Software Update. Below, we have highlighted eight new features and...
Apple iCloud Plus expansion hero

iCloud+ Now Includes Apple TV, Apple Arcade, and Curated Apple Music Stations in Over 100 Countries

Tuesday September 15, 2026 1:43 am PDT by
Apple today announced a new subscription initiative that turns paid iCloud+ subscriptions into a broader services bundle in more than 100 countries. In select countries, Apple says every paid iCloud+ plan, including the cheapest 50GB tier, now includes Apple TV and Apple Arcade "at no additional cost," while family sharing extends the storage, TV and Arcade access to up to five people....

Top Rated Comments

143 months ago
Live Photos are cool, but 3D Touch will change the whole game from here on out.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
greytmom Avatar
143 months ago
My dogs are going to be so sick of me taking photos of them.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
143 months ago

Live Photo is a great feature when you create them intentionally. I hope Apple would allow us to remove accidental "live" portions of a photo as I probably wouldn't hold 3 seconds to take a photo every single time.
If you did it by mistake you can just go to edit and turn the Live Photo off by pressing the icon. Also, if you try to crop the photo it removes the live element permanently.

I think it's a great feature. I got a photo of a pint of Guinness settling for my lock screen. It's pretty cool - the bubbles go both up & down.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
143 months ago
Only Apple could get away with moving pictures as a tentpole feature.

Moving pictures=motion pictures=movies.

I've never used Vine, but I'm guessing that's what inspired this. I think if it were any other company, the press would be calling it a Vine-like feature, and there would be headlines like, "Do 6-second Vines need to be even shorter? Samsung says so!" And John Gruber would be writing some tripe about Samsung being out of ideas and copying everyone.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
east85 Avatar
143 months ago
Seems like one of those features I'd turn off as soon as I got the phone.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
143 months ago
No not at this time. It will revert to just the photo in anything that can't read the live photo.
My husband who has a 6s+ went hiking yesterday with his phone and grabbed some Live photos that he just showed me this morning. Amazing detail first off. I could see all the rocky detail on the opposite side of the dried riverbed area (Calif drought). There was a small pond left on the riverbed floor with some fish and frogs still surviving. You could see the green algae in stagnant spots. It really had a "mossy" feel to it. The clarity of the photo looking into the water of the pond was stunning. The photos he took really blew me away. I have a 6+ and didn't think I would feel the need to upgrade....then he touched the Live photos and I could see why this will be a hot feature that people will want to upgrade to. The fish in the pond were moving and the water rippling. The photo he took of some deer in a grassy field suddenly started frolicking in a circle with each other. That was such a special moment of his hike to share later with me was all I thought. I haven't spent any time looking at anything else the phone does over my 6+ but I'm already wanting to upgrade.

Oh and he air dropped the photo of the deer to my 6+ and I could view it on there as a Live Photo. So cool. You need to hold your finger on the photo the whole time while viewing to see the entire action. I tried downloading it to my older MBP and it wouldn't transfer. Hubby thinks it's because that machine is still on older software so I'll upgrade soon and retry the download. The photo appears in my Photos album on my 6+ as two images. One with a .jpg extension and the other with the same name but a .mov extension.

This is super cool and if you have an Apple Store in your area, you should stop in at some point and check it out. I think this is a mover especially for people on older phones...and likely for some of us still on a 6 or 6+.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

🔗 Related Apple News & Rumors

Stay updated with the latest Apple ecosystem news and verified rumors