Apple announced iOS 15 during the WWDC21 keynote and introduced a number of features. With developer news sessions still taking place this week, there is still a lot more to reveal about the new iPhone operating system. As has now become known, Apple has been working on improving integration with games and controllers.
Developer Steve Troughton-Smith shared on Twitter that ReplayKit now offers the ability to simplify recording while playing a game. With this feature, it is possible to instantly capture the last 15 seconds as a clip. He also mentions that there is an API to programmatically trigger recording for in-game highlights. This feature looks similar to what is already available on PS5, PS4, and Xbox One X, for example. At the moment, users can record their gameplay on iPhone and Mac in the classic way. But with this new ReplayKit feature, it will be easier to share just a snippet of content with iOS 15. This feature is compatible with the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 DualSense controllers.
Game Controller: ReplayKit is improved under iOS 15
Apple also promoted a “Tap into virtual and physical game controllers” section during WWDC21 week. One of the Apple engineers commented on it as follows:
As I showed you before, the system gestures for media capture are a double press to take a screenshot in the Camera Roll and a long press to start and stop a ReplayKit recording. This year, we're adding a super cool new way to capture media: 15-second highlights. Instead of having to remember to start and stop recording, players can now simply enable automatic background buffering, which lets them save the last 15 seconds of gameplay.
If you want to see the corresponding WWDC session yourself, you can find it here. (Photo by HannaKuprevich / Bigstockphoto)