Atomos Ninja Phone (using iPhone 15 Pro)

No, Atomos didn’t announce new smartphone, (RIP RED Hydrogen One) but an accessory/adapter that utilizes the iPhone 15 Pro’s XDR display to act as a camera monitor. Smart!

Beyond making an iPhone 15 Pro function as a camera monitor + recorder, it enables cloud workflows and live streaming-hello Frame.io 4. The possibility for this accessory is as great as the iPhone capabilities that are growing/updated every year. With the rumored iPhone 16 Pro screen size getting better and bigger, it’s increasingly difficult for other portable screen manufacturers to compete against Apple-the biggest company in the world. Atomos made a smart bet to be a part of much larger ecosystem & customer base. I hope Atomos expands this accessory line to work with iPad Pro as well.

With any new production gear, my next thought process is always What Would BlackMagic Design Do?

Like what people say about a camera, the best camera monitor is the one you have with you all the time. And you’ll find no better options than iPhone Pro screens at its size/class.

Extra: I read the comments on the video, and found out about Accsoon SeeMo Pro

This is the first time I heard about this product/company, but it’s less expensive with more options to use iPad as well as iPhone, and SDI ports.

Source: https://www.atomos.com/explore/ninja-phone/

My Reactions to iPhone 15 Pro (Max)

Annual September Apple Keynote aka new iPhone announcement happened earlier today and it held my interests despite being somewhat predictable and spoiled by the Apple rumor mill.

Every new iPhone release has become predictably iterative affair, but this year merits a blog post since Apple made serious updates to the camera technologies underpinning iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max.

Here’s the list of defining features that set apart from the previous iPhones.

  1. USB-C 3 / 10 Gbits per second (iPhone 15 only supports USB-C 2)

  2. Support for ACES

  3. New 5x lens using tetraprism (iPhone Pro Max only)

  4. Spatial Videos (only viewable on Vision Pro for now)

  5. Support for 4K60(fps) ProRes recording to external drives

  6. Customizable Action Button

  7. Ray tracing with A17 Pro chip (Saving A17 non-Pro chip for near year, iPhone 16 perhaps?)

  8. New Portrait photo mode. (RIP Lytro)

Every year, iPhone is getting closer and closer to replacing not only DSLRs, but pro video cameras as well. With support for pro video technology and workflows, iPhone is a serious consideration for a C cam, if not a B cam. (No smartphone camera will ever replace A Cam from Arri or Sony, obviously)

This solid updates merit purchase for me as an iPhone 13 Pro Max user.

Apple also introduced new iCloud+ tiers: $30 for 6 TB & $60 for 12 TB per month. This means that Apple intends to get another hundreds of dollars of service revenue per year from iPhone Pro (and iPad & Mac) users.

If Apple can keep up this pace of innovations that can satisfy the pro users, they will make more money than ever before.

(Disclaimer: I own Apple stocks as of today)