The Covid-19 pandemic is keeping us apart, but Apple won’t let physical distance get in the way of group selfies. The Californian giant has filed a US patent for what it calls a “synthetic group selfie,” as first reported by Patently Apple.
According to the patent, an Apple user can invite friends to each take an individual selfie using their own device. The software will automatically stitch the selfies together to create a single group selfie, but any recipients can also choose to manually rearrange themselves in the image. And the selfies don’t have to be still images: The patent says they can also be videos, live-streamed or recorded.
While this seems perfect at a time of social distancing, it probably wasn’t what Apple had in mind when it came up with the idea. The patent was actually filed back in July 2018, but it was only granted earlier this month.