Apple Live Photos – Inspired by Blade Runner?

The recently released iPhone 6S and 6S Plus have a new feature called Live Photos which captures a moment of motion before and after your still photograph.

live photo example

A still photo captures an instant frozen in time. With Live Photos, you can turn those instants into unforgettable living memories. At the heart of a Live Photo is a beautiful 12-megapixel photo. But together with that photo are the moments just before and after it was taken, captured with movement and sound.

In almost every review of the new iPhones Live Photos are likened to the moving images in The Daily Prophet the newspaper from the Harry Potter novels.

But these reviews are all missing the real inspiration for Live Photos which surely has to be the original ‘live photo’ that appears in Ridley Scott’s fabulous Blade Runner.

Photographs play a central part to the plot of Blade Runner, taking on even greater significance for the replicants than for humans representing false memories implanted by the Tyrell Corporation.

The appearance of the ‘live photo’ is a wonderfully subtle moment in the film, the first time you see it you aren’t quite sure you did “wait, did that photo just move?” rewind and yes there it is – the original Live Photo.

More Apple than Apple, that’s our motto.