A look at the lidar industry and Apple's potential role within it, as the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max become the first mass market phones to adopt the technology
Ars TechnicaTimothy B. Lee
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes a three-year loop: Apple was reported back in 2017 to be building a rear-facing 3D laser depth system for the iPhone, and by 2019 Reuters reported it developing its own lidar while evaluating four potential suppliers — originally with self-driving cars in mind. The iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max are where that work ships at scale.
The significance is what mass-market volumes do to a sensor category that has lived almost entirely in automotive programs. Developers are already attached: [[a:958938|Snap says it will launch an AR Lens built specifically for the LiDAR-equipped iPhone 12 Pro models]].
First-order effects
Lidar component suppliers gain their first consumer-electronics volume channel, since every iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max unit ships with the sensor rather than a handful of vehicle platforms per year.
AR developers get depth data on a mainstream device immediately — Snap's dedicated Lens means the software side of the ecosystem is being written against the hardware from day one.
Second-order effects
Automotive-focused lidar makers now compete with Apple's dual track — its own in-house sensor development alongside the supplier evaluations reported in 2019 — tightening pricing pressure across the whole lidar industry.
Rival phone makers face pressure to match depth-sensing capability, pushing lidar-like sensors into the standard flagship bill of materials.
Third-order effects
If smartphone volumes drive lidar costs down the way camera modules were commoditized, the same sensors become cheaper inputs for Apple's longer-term autonomy ambitions — the trajectory its supplier talks point toward.
Perception hardware consolidates around whoever controls consumer scale: Apple sourcing or building its own sensors shifts value from specialist lidar firms toward integrated device makers.
The trend: Lidar is crossing over from a bespoke automotive sensor to a commoditized consumer component, with smartphone scale set by Apple determining who captures the value.
Long-range lidar used to cost around $75,000. But the same technologies that let Apple put short-range lidar in a smartphone could make long-range lidar cheap enough to become a standard feature of cars. https://arstechnica.com/...
@tchebotarev Yes. Lidar has been around for decades. It's OK to treat it stylistically like sonar and radar, terms long since stripped of their acronym meanings. Marketing people, including those at Apple, go for “LiDAR” I imagine because they think it sounds or looks fancier.
@Snap have already announced AR support for LIDAR sensor on iPhone 12 Pro, while Spark AR (from Facebook) still very poorly handles world-facing tracking. One seems to be pushing more than the other.
A LiDAR sensor within the iPhone should not be a surprise. It's another strong indicator of Apple's intention beyond mobile screens. More importantly, this is a meaningful way to introduce the technology and to build an understanding of it's value.
Was never quite sure what the difference between LiDAR and TOF is. Assumed they were roughly different names for the same thing. Thats what this article more or less says - very nice short explanation of TOF/LiDAR tech we're seeing in smart phones https://ios.gadgethacks.com/ ...
I've gotten a lot of questions about LIDAR on the iPhone 12 and what it means for 3D. In a nutshell, LIDAR is great for making point clouds. Great for scanning a room. Great for placing 3D models. Not for making finished models. What's missing: topology and PBR textures.
Great explanation for anyone wondering about the diff btw Apple LIDAR & other IR ToF sensors cc @dens They all aim to deliver the same piece of data - a high quality depth frame. Longest range, highest frame rate, highest resolution, lowest watts are the drivers of quality https:…
Thoughts and prayers with all those that started an MA in Digital Archaeology two weeks ago only for Apple to announce you can do LIDAR on the next iPhone
When I first graduated in 2008, I worked at a computer vision research lab. It's crazy to see that the specialized lidar/mapping projects that cost a team of researchers, multiple months, and $x00,000 are now just freely available in an iPhone
New iPhone has LIDAR - lets brainstorm some ways this might be useful in healthcare quarter-baked ideas -autonomous carts in hospitals -caregivers can use to map homes to assess risks (e.g. fall risks) -putting overlays onto patients before things like surgeries