In the upcoming book “Inside Apple,” it is explained that Steve Jobs expressed great interest in light field camera maker Lytro. The late Apple co-founder even met with the company’s CEO Ren Ng, who after finding out Jobs wanted to meet, rushed to his home to discuss product design and photography according to an “Inside Apple” passage obtained by 9to5mac. “The company’s CEO, Ren Ng, a brilliant computer scientist with a PhD from Stanford, immediately called Jobs, who picked up the phone and quickly said, ‘if you’re free this afternoon maybe we would could get together,’ ” the book reads. “Ng, who is thirty-two, hurried to Palo Alto, showed Jobs a demo of Lytro’s technology, discussed cameras and product design with him, and, at Jobs’s request, agreed to send him an email outlining three things he’d like Lytro to do with Apple.” Read on for more.
Intrigued by the technology, Jobs asked the CEO to outline three specific things that the company would want to work on with Apple. Lytro cameras can capture “all the light traveling in every direction in every point in space,” also known as “the entire light field.” Afterwards, users can edit the photo and choose which area should be the focal point of the image, with the ability to refocus it later using a special file format with an integrated viewer.
Lytro’s pictures are taken instantly, and the company claims its image capturing system is like no other. It is quite possible, theoretically, that a future iPhone could feature a high-powered Lytro sensor with built-in viewing software that could be used to refocus the image on the smartphone.
