Boost your webcam with an iPhone
It’ll be better than the camera on your Mac
MACS ARE GREAT, but their webcams leave a lot to be desired — even an old iPhone likely has a better set of lenses than your Mac. In issue 176 we showed you how to turn an old iPhone into a Mac webcam using the free Camo app. Not only is it a great way to improve your video call quality, but it can help put an old device to good use instead of just throwing it away.
To get started, download Camo from reincubate.com on your Mac and the App Store on your iPhone. Connect your phone to your Mac with a cable, then launch Camo on both devices. You should see Camo working as a camera app on your iPhone. Now all that is left is to mount your iPhone in place with a stand and configure your video–calling app’s settings to mark Camo as your camera input.
The beauty of Camo is the large range of controls it puts at your fingertips. You can set it to use your iPhone’s rear lenses for the best quality, or its selfie camera so you can monitor your video in real time.
There are settings to use the flash to brighten things up, adjust the video resolution if you need to save bandwidth, and manually tweak the focus point. If you need deeper controls, Camo lets you alter brightness, color