Several film productions have used the idea of shooting a movie entirely on an iPhone as a clever marketing tactic (see: Romance in NYC). Well, Apple just took the idea and applied it to a Major League Soccer (MLS) game; however, it’s already seeing some backlash from fans.
Essentially, Apple used 15 iPhone 17 Pro Max devices to capture live footage throughout a match between the LA Galaxy and the Houston Dynamo. This includes team warmups on the pitch, player introductions, in-net goal angles, and the atmosphere inside the stadium.
Although the phones were positioned throughout the stadium, Android Authority noted the devices had a significant advantage in unique close-up angles and in-net goal cameras that are otherwise quite difficult to achieve with more traditional broadcast cameras, which, as imagined, are much larger than the average iPhone.
However, like most productions that use iPhones as the main camera, it was complemented by rigs and professional lenses that were significantly more expensive than the iPhone.
Even with all of this, a fair number of users on Reddit noted that the broadcast didn’t look all that good, with most complaints citing softer shots, visible compression, constant refocusing, shaky tracking, and heavier image processing during fast movement across the field.
One user also hilariously noted the “too dark darks and the too bright brights” that came with the iPhone 17 broadcast. The same user also said that “the auto light filtering feels like I’m actually at the match also watching through an iPhone 17.”
While it is cool to see an iPhone being used to shoot a sporting event (and potentially save production companies money on equipment), I think the ideal setup to use iPhones in professional sporting events like this is for other external angles (crowd shots, in-net angles, etc.) that would be too awkward to use a traditional camera with, while using traditional broadcast cameras for the wide shots.
Source: Android Authority
