Poor Studio Display webcam: software fix will greatly improve image quality

The vast majority of the first Studio Display testers complained yesterday about the really poor image quality of the new screen’s webcam. Washed out colors, noise, zero contrast… For a 12 megapixel sensor benefiting in addition to the ISP processing of the A13 chip, it looks bad. Apple quickly promised an update, without going into too much detail.

John Gruber, who was not kind to this camera either in his test, also got official confirmation from Apple that a fix was on the way. The blog host Daring Fireballvery popular on the Cupertino side, also spoke to some of his sources who told him indicated that the bug was indeed software, and purely software.

A selfie of John Gruber taken at the same time under the same conditions, on an iPhone SE 3 (left) and the Studio Display (right).

The sensor is therefore not at fault, which will be a relief for anyone who was already considering canceling or returning their order. But there’s better: the update in question should put the Studio Display camera at the same level of quality as iPads equipped with the same component (the new iPad Air and last year’s iPad Pro) or almost. ISP of the M1 chip being a little more efficient than that of the A13.

But as Gruber says, someone at Apple must have had a bad time yesterday when the tests came out…