Apple granted patent for creating synthetic group selfies, here’s how it will work

The patent granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) states that the ‘synthetic group selfies’ can be made by clicking selfies individually and stitching them together into a single image.

These can be still images, stored videos and even live streaming images. It may also be possible to re-arrange the user’s position in the image. (Pixabay)

Looks like post-pandemic world will not just change the way we interact with others in real life but will also bring a massive change when it comes to taking selfies. And Apple seems to be at the forefront of all this. The iPhone maker has reportedly won a patent that lets it click selfies that also adhere with social distancing rules. How is that possible? Before you guess it, no, it is not introducing an ultra-wide selfie camera so it captures more area with people standing away from each other, but will instead synthetically stitch the images and videos together using its software smarts.

As mentioned by Patently Apple, the patent granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) states that the ‘synthetic group selfies' can be made by clicking selfies individually and stitching them together into a single image. These can be still images, stored videos and even live streaming images. It may also be possible to re-arrange the user's position in the image.

How Apple's socially distant selfie will work.  (Patently Apple)

How Apple's socially distant selfie will work.  (Patently Apple)

“The synthetic group selfie can be stored as a multi-resource object that preserves the individual selfie images so that the user who created the synthetic group selfie or a recipient of the synthetic group selfie can modify the arrangement of the individual selfies within the synthetic group selfie,” adds the report.

From the illustrations shown by the website, users will get the option to accept the selfie clicked or ‘Retake' it before sending it to the person who has invited the user to participate in a group selfie. The user, at first place, will get the option to accept or decline the request sent by others.

As one can expect, this looks more of a software change and might hardly have to do anything with the hardware. This also means that there's a possibility this might be coming to most iPhones in future. We are however, not sure when this feature will be rolled out.