Lidar, is it worth it?

By DPinWI, 2 July, 2021

Forum
Apple Hardware and Compatible Accessories

Hello

I'm considering changing carriers, and am being offered an upgrade from my iPhone 11, to a 12 Pro.

Do any of the Pro users find that Lidar is a valuable asset?

Further complicating my decision is that it seems they are offering a 128GB 12 Pro, and my 11 is 256GB. I like the extra space, but if Lidar is a big deal, I may be swayed.

Options

Comments

By Dalia on Thursday, July 22, 2021 - 08:00

It would likely depend upon your circumstances and use case, but I've had an iPhone 12 Pro since the day it was released and have yet to find a meaningful or productive use for its lIDAR scanner.

People Detection is a great concept, but not a great implementation here in my opinion as it requires you walking around holding your iPhone out in front of you and attempting to incorporate the feedback in to the other strategies you have for navigation and situational awareness.

LiDAR also hasn't added much yet in my opinion to the accuracy or general performance of scene recognition apps that have so far sought to take advantage of it.

All that to say that I wouldn't personally put much weight on to LiDar when making a purchase decision, as I don't see the situation changing any time soon.

Now, when it comes to LiDAR on Apple Glass, that's when things might become interesting ☺️

By Holger Fiallo on Thursday, July 22, 2021 - 08:00

Have it, do not use it. Maybe when more things can be done with it. Do have 12 pro

By DPinWI on Thursday, July 22, 2021 - 08:00

Thanks for your input. While I hold out hope that one day we'll have killer apps that use Lidar, it seems that day isn't here yet. I'll keep my 11, and see what the future brings.

By Holy Diver on Thursday, July 22, 2021 - 08:00

This was one of those rare times when apple is first to introduce a new technology, usually they wait till the early bugs are ironed out then come out with a really smooth implimentation of things that already exist. One of the often overlooked pieces of IOS 15 is better code for object recognition any IOS app developer can use. I think that will really help lidar come into its own to help with things like focusing on cameras, better OCR for things farther away, etc. It's not gonna replace a cane or dog but I bet it will have some really useful applications once developers are able to use all that extra code from Apple so they don’t have to start from the ground up every time they try and use lidar. It's actually one of the things I’m most jealous of as mostly an android user, give it a couple years and it probably will be much better on IOS than anywhere else, they’re doing the right work for it now. It just takes time for new things like this to really come into their own, be patient. :)

By Holger Fiallo on Thursday, July 22, 2021 - 08:00

In reply to by Holy Diver

For those of us. FYI the military has been using it for their navigation in their jets and helicopters.

By Jakob Rosin on Thursday, July 22, 2021 - 08:00

I do use Lidar all the time. Seeing AI has a very nice built in proximity detector, where the phone's taptics increase when an object is closer. Very handy quick tool to detect people, trees, cars ETC when navigating.