Now you can record bokeh-filled video on an iPhone with the Focos Live app

By Oliver Haslam
published

iPhone XS Portrait mode
iPhone XS Portrait mode (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • There's a new app that lets you record Portrait mode video.
  • Focos Live is available for download from the App Store now.
  • It's free but will cost if you want to record anything better than 720p video.

Apple's Portrait mode is one of the unsung heroes of Apple's camera technology in recent years and it's continued to improve since its debut in 2016. But it still hasn't gained support for video which is a real shame. Don't worry though, this is the App Store. And now there's an app for that.

Enter Focos Live, an app that came to my attention when I spotted Ben Geskin using it on Twitter. Check out Geskin's comparison tweets showing how an iPhone 11 handles recording video with and without the new app.

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We can all agree that the results are surprisingly good, although it's to be noted that there is no support for image stabilization right now. Hopefully the developer has that on their list of upcoming improvements.

You can download Focus Live from the App Store right now for free. That will let you record video at 720p, but if you want to increase that to 1080p or 4K you can – so long as you hand over $14.99 or subscribe starting at $1.99 per month.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.