How glasses-free 3D works
Your iPhone can capture depth since the 15 Pro.
Here's what it takes to actually see it.
Ever wondered what these spatial photos and videos are all about?
Time to see the difference!
Every spatial photo contains two slightly different views, one per eye. Your phone only lets you see one. To see depth, each eye needs to see its own image. Your brain does the rest!
The optics
Two images, two eyes
Depth is not something added to the picture. It is something a flat screen throws away, and something an optical filter can hand back.
- Light reaching the left eye
- Light reaching the right eye
01
Two views, one screen
A spatial photo is really two photos, taken a couple of centimetres apart, the same way your two eyes see the world. Your screen shows both at once, split into fine alternating pixels.
02
The filter aims the light
Normally every pixel sprays light in all directions, so both eyes see the exact same image. The filter sits in front of the display and controls which direction each pixel's light travels.
03
Your brain does the rest
Each eye ends up with only its own view. The small difference between them is exactly the signal your brain has used to judge distance since you were born. Nothing is simulated.
Everything else stays exactly as it was
Preserved 2D quality
Outside the CubicScreen app, everything looks the way it always did. Messages, maps, video, your camera roll. The filter is optically neutral until it has a reason not to be.
Full touch sensitivity
Every tap, swipe, and long press registers exactly as before. Face ID and the front camera are unobstructed.
Original brightness
Your display keeps its brightness and colour accuracy. Nothing is dimmed to make room for natural depth.
Fits your case
Thin enough that your existing case still seats properly, with no lifted edges.
How it works
Four steps, start to finish
From opening the box to seeing a photo you thought you already knew.
01 / 04
Install
Line the film up with your screen and press. Two minutes, no tools, no bubbles. Then download the CubicScreen app and let it run its automatic calibration once. It measures how the lenses sit over your display, saves the result, and you never touch it again.
02 / 04
Shoot
Use the iPhone camera app you already use to shoot in spatial mode. Spatial capture is built into the phone, so there is nothing extra to open and nothing new to learn. Every spatial photo and video you shoot shows up in CubicScreen automatically, gathered in one place instead of buried in your camera roll.
03 / 04
See
Open the CubicScreen app and your spatial library comes back with its depth intact. The front camera tracks where your eyes are, and the film on your screen steers the left view to your left eye and the right view to your right eye. Each eye sees only the image meant for it, and your brain triangulates the depth.
04 / 04
Relive
With CubicScreen you do not just look at a photo, you explore it. Zoom in, zoom out, turn the phone portrait or landscape: the 3D holds up every time. The moments you thought you had already seen turn out to have more in them. Distance between people. Space in a room. The things a flat frame quietly drops.
Compatibility
Which iPhones this works with
Spatial capture started with the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max. Most newer models support it too, but not all of them, so check the full list of compatible iPhones below.
- iPhone 15 Pro
- iPhone 15 Pro Max
- iPhone 16
- iPhone 16 Plus
- iPhone 16 Pro
- iPhone 16 Pro Max
- iPhone 17
- iPhone 17 Pro
- iPhone 17 Pro Max
Do not see your model? Newer iPhones are added as they become available.
There's more to experience.
New iPhone model support, and the occasional note on shooting better spatial photos. Nothing else.
