iPhone 8 may become the first smartphone to provide its owners with the ability to capture video in 4K resolution at a silky smooth sixty frames per second via both front and rear cameras, as per code strings uncovered from the HomePod firmware by Brazilian outlet iHelp.

Strings in the firmware indicate that both front and rear cameras of iPhone 8 may feature 4K video capture at sixty frames per second, as evidenced on the screenshot top of post.

As you can see in the image above, flags for ‘isBack4k60VideoSupported’ and ‘isFront4k60VideoSupported’ were found under CAMCaptureCapabilities.

Recording in 4K may become more common with iOS 11. The new firmware brings High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265, delivering significant compression improvements over H.264. Apple estimates up to 40% better compression than H.264 in general use cases and up to 2x better compression than H.264 in iOS camera capture. This is going to mean significantly reduced files sizes when shooting 4K with the iPhone 7 or the upcoming iPhone 8.

We should point out that a similar discovery was made more than two years ago, with strings in iOS 9 code indicating at the time that the FaceTime camera would include features like panoramic mode and Slo-Mo video capture at 240FPS, which it never did.

And if you’re worried about the file size, don’t be: both iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra pack in support for High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265.

Approved three and a half years ago, H.265 is capable of compressing 4K video with a wider range of colors at half the file size versus the H.264 codec that’s used in current Apple devices.

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