Apple and motorcycles going through a bumpy breakup - hearts and cameras broken

[Jtalk4456]

Summary

"Motorcycle vibrations can degrade iPhone camera performance, Apple says"

 

 

My Thoughts

Quote

A new post on Apple’s Support forum says exposing iPhones to high-amplitude vibrations, “specifically those generated by high-power motorcycle engines” could degrade the devices’ camera system. The company recommends against mounting an iPhone on a motorcycle, as the vibrations may be transmitted via the bike’s handlebars and chassis.

 

I'm surprised they are built where they can have broken cameras from being on a motorcycle, but also, who is mounting their phone on the handlebars?? I don't ride motorcycles, so I may not get it, but it seems that's would not be a good place to put a phone while riding. To me this is the same as holding a phone while holding the car steering wheel.

Apple's technical explanation:

Spoiler

 

If you accidentally move a camera when you take a picture, the resulting image can be blurry. To prevent this, some iPhone models have optical image stabilization (OIS).1 OIS lets you take sharp photos even if you accidentally move the camera. With OIS, a gyroscope senses that the camera moved. To reduce image motion, and the resulting blur, the lens moves according to the angle of the gyroscope.

Additionally, some iPhone models have closed-loop autofocus (AF).2 Closed-loop AF resists the effects of gravity and vibration to preserve sharp focus in stills, videos, and panoramas. With closed-loop AF, on-board magnetic sensors measure gravity and vibration effects and determine the lens position so that the compensating motion can be set accurately.

The OIS and closed-loop AF systems in iPhone are designed for durability. However, as is the case with many consumer electronics that include systems like OIS, long-term direct exposure to high-amplitude vibrations within certain frequency ranges may degrade the performance of these systems and lead to reduced image quality for photos and videos. It is recommended to avoid exposing your iPhone to extended high-amplitude vibrations.

 

Also why are we just now finding about this?
 

Quote

Additionally in the new post, Apple says if you’re planning to mount your iPhone to a scooter or a moped, it recommends using a vibration-dampening mount to lessen the risk to the phone and its camera system. And avoiding prolonged regular use of an iPhone mounted to a vehicle that produces lower-amplitude vibrations is also a good idea.

This seem to me more like a general rule not to constantly vibrate electronics for various reasons, I'm curious why this advice is just now being put out.

 

Sources

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/11/22668294/motorcycle-vibrations-damage-iphone-camera-apple

[Fasterthannothing]

41 minutes ago, Jtalk4456 said:

This seem to me more like a general rule not to constantly vibrate electronics for various reasons, I'm curious why this advice is just now being put out.

 

That's not something that should be true anymore we have solid state systems in phones now. No hdds to bump and before this dumb camera tech no hardware image stabilization. I guarantee this isn't going to just happen with motorcycle riders. I have a sports car with stiff shocks and it isn't no cloud that I'm driving in. I'd wager it's about as bad as a motorcycle depending on the road and speed. I mean honestly if something is this fragile in something that people move around a lot then it's not viable technology. Our phone cameras are meant to replace DSLR not become just as fragile.

[hishnash]

From my understanding this happens on all cameras that have images stabilisation, lets be clear never attach such a device to your bikes handle bars the amount of vibration that it gets will of course damage the system. 

 

55 minutes ago, SlidewaysZ said:

I have a sports car with stiff shocks and it isn't no cloud that I'm driving in. I'd wager it's about as bad as a motorcycle depending on the road and speed.

 With a bike if you have the phone attached the handle bars it will be getting a LOT more of that very high frequency vibration than if your attached to a plastic dashboard in a car. This is not about the vibrations of the surface your are drive-in over, it is the much higher frequency vibrations of engine. In a 1 or 2 cylinder bike that vibration frequency is directly transmitted into the metal handle bars and thus directly into the phone. On a 4 to 8 cylinder car you end up with much less of that vibration, also the engine block will typically have some dampening (unlike a bike) so the amount of high frequency vibrations will be much lower, then add the fact that the phone is likely not attached directly but rather to a large lump of plastic (your dash) these high frequency vibrations will not be an issue in car. 

 

[Blademaster91]

1 hour ago, Jtalk4456 said:

I'm surprised they are built where they can have broken cameras from being on a motorcycle, but also, who is mounting their phone on the handlebars?? I don't ride motorcycles, so I may not get it, but it seems that's would not be a good place to put a phone while riding.

I don't ride motorcycles, but I think it makes sense as you can use the phone as a GPS, and aren't risking the phone falling out of your pocket while riding.

IMO hardware image stabilization is a real drawback if it can be broken so easily, I think the phone should be able to detect that much vibration and disable image stabilization to avoid damaging the camera.

[Jtalk4456]

21 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

I don't ride motorcycles, but I think it makes sense as you can use the phone as a GPS, and aren't risking the phone falling out of your pocket while riding.

IMO hardware image stabilization is a real drawback if it can be broken so easily, I think the phone should be able to detect that much vibration and disable image stabilization to avoid damaging the camera.

yeah i figure it's got a gyroscope and should be able to tell pretty easy and shut itself down

[Zodiark1593]

1 hour ago, SlidewaysZ said:

That's not something that should be true anymore we have solid state systems in phones now. No hdds to bump and before this dumb camera tech no hardware image stabilization. I guarantee this isn't going to just happen with motorcycle riders. I have a sports car with stiff shocks and it isn't no cloud that I'm driving in. I'd wager it's about as bad as a motorcycle depending on the road and speed. I mean honestly if something is this fragile in something that people move around a lot then it's not viable technology. Our phone cameras are meant to replace DSLR not become just as fragile.

Being strapped to the handlebars of a motorcycle isn’t a use case that often comes up for smartphones. Even with solud-state components, excessive vibrations and inertia can overcome the supporting underfill, and cause damage to solder joints and the like. 
 

Additionally, optical image stabilization is a moving component that can also be damaged from excessive motion. 
 

Simply put, use a device that is specifically built to withstand the conditions you intend to use it with. Smartphones are not intended to be used as action cameras. They’re a digital swiss-army knife, but a specialist tool they are not. There are GoPros and other such cameras for this purpose. 

[Dracarris]

10 hours ago, SlidewaysZ said:

That's not something that should be true anymore we have solid state systems in phones now.

Besides solid state there are also MEMS systems in every modern phone, which are - as the name suggest - simply micro mechanical systems. Every 9-axis sensor works like that. And optical image stabilization is damn sure a mechanical system which is prone to such damage.

[RejZoR]

The issue here isn't Apple exclusive and has nothing to do with phone internals as such. It has specifically to do with OIS stabilization mechanism that's not meant to experience sustained hard jolts for extended periods of times. Cheap phones without OIS aren't even affected which is why this came up after so long time as 90% of people in the world use cheaper phones that were mostly without OIS. It's just now that they have it on lower end ones and OIS became more common that it started to become a bigger problem.

 

And if you think about it, it makes sense. If you touch the OIS enabled lens, it moves around. Imagine it jiggling around at crazy frequency when phone is mounted on handlebar of a motorbike or bicycle that rides on rough terrain. I'm actually surprised it took this long to find out this is a problem. I wonder if we could do some sort of dampening like we have in cars.

[Avocado Diaboli]

11 hours ago, Jtalk4456 said:

but also, who is mounting their phone on the handlebars??

I personally never mount my phone to the handlebars because I don't trust the mounts to keep the phone safe while riding, I don't want a $700 phone flying off. And this added problem of it breaking the image stabilization is another reason to not do so. But I have a bunch of friends and acquaintances who put their phones there for Google Maps navigation. I don't use navigation while riding because I tend to research my routes beforehand and if I ever need to figure out where to go, I'll just stop at the side of the road and take my phone out to have a look.

[RejZoR]

I do have my phone on bicycle when I'm going for a ride, but it's inside a bag under the seat and I have suspension seat which it filters a lot of jolts. I don't think it'll be an issue.

[elfensky]

19 hours ago, Jtalk4456 said:

I'm surprised they are built where they can have broken cameras from being on a motorcycle, but also, who is mounting their phone on the handlebars?? I don't ride motorcycles, so I may not get it, but it seems that's would not be a good place to put a phone while riding. To me this is the same as holding a phone while holding the car steering wheel.

uhh. you put it in the middle, and hold the sides? Same as mounting a phone to a bicycle?
This is a good example.

[Sauron]

19 hours ago, Jtalk4456 said:

who is mounting their phone on the handlebars??

I don't ride motorcycles either but... suppose you want to use gps...?

[Curufinwe_wins]

Hard mounting to stiff devices subject to large shock forces is bad. End of story. I seriously doubt this is an apple exclusive situation, but a better designed handle bar mount (with some amount of rubberized flexible damping material) would probably solve the situation.

 

Edit: people talking about cars... a phone in a pocket has the huge damping factor of the human body and seat. A phone mounted to a windshield has generally the flex of the suction device and the long arm to damp. A phone sitting in a cellphone holder/charger generally has both the rubberized surface and additionally being unconstrained in some dimensions to assist in damping. 

 

Hard mounting to a stiff member like a handlebar is probably a near worst case situation. Still not good ofc.

 

 

And btw, everyone here knows I'm an apple hater, so if I'm saying this it's probably not really Apple's fault. 

[jagdtigger]

17 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Even with solud-state components, excessive vibrations and inertia can overcome the supporting underfill, and cause damage to solder joints and the like. 

Tell that to my 7 year old s5 which gets mounted on my motorbike (inline 4 and it can rev as high as 13000 rpm) on a regular basis... Hell even the gyros were fine right up until i cracked the screen by sitting on it (forgot it in my back pocket).

[Curufinwe_wins]

3 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Tell that to my 7 year old s5 which gets mounted on my motorbike (inline 4 and it can rev as high as 13000 rpm) on a regular basis... Hell even the gyros were fine right up until i cracked the screen by sitting on it (forgot it in my back pocket).

The specific stiffness of a given mount and case is probably the single largest factor, not the phone itself. 

[jagdtigger]

5 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

The specific stiffness of a given mount and case is probably the single largest factor, not the phone itself. 

RAM Xgrip, pretty stiff if you ask me....

[Zodiark1593]

25 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Tell that to my 7 year old s5 which gets mounted on my motorbike (inline 4 and it can rev as high as 13000 rpm) on a regular basis... Hell even the gyros were fine right up until i cracked the screen by sitting on it (forgot it in my back pocket).

There’s probably many different variables that can impact wear and tear on the OiS, and different bikes are constructed differently that can impart varying vibrations. There’s single-cylinder bikes that can hit 5-digit RPMs as well. Engine mounting and suspension can also influence vibrations. 
 

This is a likely CYA blanket statement saying that their phones aren’t designed for this use case in mind. 

[jagdtigger]

5 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

This is a likely CYA blanket statement. 

The vibrations are bad enough for the rubber mount of the mic inside a sjcam to be rather ineffective, guess again.....

[Belgarathian]

21 hours ago, Jtalk4456 said:

Summary

"Motorcycle vibrations can degrade iPhone camera performance, Apple says"

 

 

My Thoughts

 

I'm surprised they are built where they can have broken cameras from being on a motorcycle, but also, who is mounting their phone on the handlebars?? I don't ride motorcycles, so I may not get it, but it seems that's would not be a good place to put a phone while riding. To me this is the same as holding a phone while holding the car steering wheel.

Apple's technical explanation:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

If you accidentally move a camera when you take a picture, the resulting image can be blurry. To prevent this, some iPhone models have optical image stabilization (OIS).1 OIS lets you take sharp photos even if you accidentally move the camera. With OIS, a gyroscope senses that the camera moved. To reduce image motion, and the resulting blur, the lens moves according to the angle of the gyroscope.

Additionally, some iPhone models have closed-loop autofocus (AF).2 Closed-loop AF resists the effects of gravity and vibration to preserve sharp focus in stills, videos, and panoramas. With closed-loop AF, on-board magnetic sensors measure gravity and vibration effects and determine the lens position so that the compensating motion can be set accurately.

The OIS and closed-loop AF systems in iPhone are designed for durability. However, as is the case with many consumer electronics that include systems like OIS, long-term direct exposure to high-amplitude vibrations within certain frequency ranges may degrade the performance of these systems and lead to reduced image quality for photos and videos. It is recommended to avoid exposing your iPhone to extended high-amplitude vibrations.

 

Also why are we just now finding about this?
 

This seem to me more like a general rule not to constantly vibrate electronics for various reasons, I'm curious why this advice is just now being put out.

 

Sources

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/11/22668294/motorcycle-vibrations-damage-iphone-camera-apple

I mounted mine to the handlebars so that you can use GPS Navigation and caller ID with my wireless comms system

[BondiBlue]

21 hours ago, Jtalk4456 said:

I'm surprised they are built where they can have broken cameras from being on a motorcycle, but also, who is mounting their phone on the handlebars?? I don't ride motorcycles, so I may not get it, but it seems that's would not be a good place to put a phone while riding. To me this is the same as holding a phone while holding the car steering wheel.

Lots of people do for a variety of reasons. Music, GPS, etc. It's quite a common thing. 

[poochyena]

19 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Being strapped to the handlebars of a motorcycle isn’t a use case that often comes up for smartphones.

tens of thousands of amazon reviews say otherwise. I strap my smartphone to my bicycle all the time and its very bumpy.

[tridy]

Almost all of the electric scooters have the mounts for the phones and i have seen many using them. I am not sure why it was specific to motorcycles. I could not find any YT videos where one would vibration-test mobile phones.

[Fasterthannothing]

This is literally the "Your holding it wrong" iPhone issue version 2.0 The fact that we even have to argue the vibration level that could damage this phone is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. They should just fix the dang thing instead of blaming others for faulty engineering.

[Video Beagle]

I was reading a bit on a photo of a politician posing with a $10k rifle with a scope on a cheap mount. A gun expert took the picture apart point by point and a bit reminded me of this thread:

 

Quote

 

You see, more commonly, with people who can afford $10,000 guns, that they'll at least spend $3,000 on a scope ... another $500 on a heavy-duty scope mount

 

What she's got on there is probably going to break at some point - right at the cantilever point, most likely - and ruin that scope and injure someone. .50 BMG guns are legendary for breaking scopes.

 

 

Just because the iPhone is an expensive device, doesn't mean it's designed for extreme enviroment use, especially without shelling out money for the extreeme support actually needed.

[duncannah]

This and yet they showed a delivery person mounting an iPhone 13 onto a motorcycle on their event today...