Apple’s Continuity Camera feature has landed with macOS Ventura and iOS 16 that lets you use your great iPhone camera as your Mac’s webcam. However, that also means you need to find a good way to mount your iPhone at the right height and angle.
Apple showed off an accessory from Belkin at WWDC (now available) that lets you mount iPhone to the top of a MacBook. But the downside is you can only really adjust the angle by moving the screen of your laptop. And it’s not that stable as it just rests on top of your MacBook making it a somewhat awkward accessory to use.
It’s also difficult to get a good result from Apple’s Desk View feature with iPhone mounted on your MacBook.
Twelve South has a nice multi-purpose iPad stand called HoverBar Duo. And it turns out it also makes for a great iPhone Continuity Camera stand.
Along with getting the perfect camera height and angle, using HoverBar Duo for Continuity Camera also means you can get a much better overhead view (Desk View) experience. That’s because you don’t have to rely on Apple’s software tricks to get the shot from the limited angle on top of your Mac.
Twelve South shared a video today highlighting the HoverBar Duo’s strengths as an iPhone mount:
Another piece to this is you don’t need iPhone directly next to your Mac to use Continuity Camera, in our testing it works within about 40-50 feet.
- iPhone as Mac webcam: How to use Continuity Camera in iOS 16 and macOS Ventura [Video]
That plus HoverBar Duo’s flexibility open up a lot of options for everything from video calls and presentations, to content creators, etc.
I actually bought the HoverBar Duo over a year ago and it’s become my go-to iPad Pro stand. But I didn’t think about how handy it could be as a Continuity Camera iPhone mount until Twelve South shared this video.
It has three points of adjustment, two in the arm and another where the iPhone/iPad holder connects that makes it easy to get the perfect angle and height.
One thing to note, you may need to mount HoverBar Duo to a monitor stand (instead of your desk) if you want to use it with an external monitor instead of just your MacBook.