Used to be there was an entry along the bottom of the Camera app that let you choose “Square” as one of the capture options. Handy, but as far as I can tell, it’s gone. How do I take square photos or pictures on my iPhone in iOS13?
Don’t worry, you can still take square photographs with the Camera app on your iPhone! Here’s what I think happened: Apple analyzed millions of photos captured on the iPhone and ascertained that while panoramas and slo-mo were popular, incredibly few people wanted to take a square photo rather than just crop a standard 4:3 photo to make it square for whatever app they were using. In the big picture, it’s a smart data-driven way to refine features and continually improve the user experience. Unless you’re that 2% that actually want to take 1:1 images!
Fortunately, as I said, the feature is still on your iPhone – and iPad – and likely will be there in iOS 14 too when that comes out. It’s just not quite so obvious any more. Same with setting a timer to take self-portraits (oops, sorry, delayed selfies!); it’s there, you just have to know where to look.
To see where all of this functionality is hiding, fire up the Camera app on your phone. It’ll look like this:
See the upward pointing angle just above the composition window? Between the no flash icon and the no “live” icons against the black background. Looks like it wouldn’t do anything but tap on it. Surprise! The choices along the bottom are replaced by specific controls for this format of picture:
Left to right, the new icons are no flash, no live, image aspect ratio, timer and capture filters. On the lower left, of course, is the most recent photo, a shortcut to your Camera Roll, and on the lower right is the circular arrow button that lets you switch between forward facing and rear facing cameras.
Tap on the 4:3 button and you can now see the various aspect ratios available:
That 16:9 is a typical video format and it’s close to 4:3, but not quite the same. 4:3 is actually 12:9 if you do the math, so 16:9 is more of a “wide screen” format for video images. Tap on “Square” and you’ll have what you seek, a 1:1 image aspect:
So that’s what you were seeking, just a few taps away. While we’re here, tap on the timer icon too, just to the right of the image aspect ratio button. You’ll now get these options:
These make the most sense to me when you have your phone on a tripod or similar, but different people use their phone camera’s differently, so perhaps you have some other innovative way to use the timer instead. Once you’re done examining your timer options, do also have a peek at the many filters available in the Camera app too. Rather Instagram-esque, if you ask me!
Pro Tip: I’ve been writing about the iPhone since the iPhone 1 was released. Really. I have a lot of iPhone Help here so please avail yourself of my tutorials to help your learning process! Thanks.