Tech Fans Are Just Discovering This Incredible Feature on iPads

A tech fan is raving about a feature they never realized existed on iPads—which allows you to accurately measure height via the camera.

While Apple brought out the iPad Pro a few years ago, the version it launched last year has an interesting addition. It came out in March, just before the pandemic gripped the world, so you'll be forgiven if the launch flew under your radar.

One Apple owner has been checking out the spec on their tablet, and discovered the camera has a built-in LiDAR scanner. It stands for "light detection and ranging," and essentially means you can map out indoor and outdoor spaces in extreme detail.

Taking to TikTok after mastering the feature on their gadget, Tech Balloon shared a video on Thursday saying: "I just found out that the iPad Pro has a Lidar scanner built-in to the back cameras. I decided to go out back and scan my garden to see what it would come up with.

"It took around five minutes to scan everything and it processed for a little bit. Here's how it turned out, it looks super realistic and you can totally tell this is the garden. But when you zoom in it does lose a lot of detail."

Tech Balloon's video, which can be viewed here, has amassed more than 2.5 million views, as fellow Apple fans expressed their shock at the high-spec scanner.

Sharing various suggestions for its use, Mar R wrote: "Someone should map out the Paris catacombs with this."

While Nintendo Stop commented: "Make my own video games with my house in it."

Brian Schodele admitted: "Really cool and scary at the same time."

"Mount it on a drone and use it to collect topographic data for engineering designs," Dustin Riley said.

While Tarandeep Kaur thought: "Real estate should be listed like this so people can view it from home before going to the house for details."

Although Fahrush Profesori pointed out: "Bought an expensive iPad and you are still discovering its main features?"

The Pro comes in two sizes and costs between $799 and $1,099.

The website listing explains the feature as: "The LiDAR Scanner measures how long it takes light to reflect back from objects, so it can create a depth map of any space you're in and unlock immersive AR experiences."

And describing the LiDAR scanner, an Apple press release said: "The LiDAR Scanner measures the distance to surrounding objects up to five meters away, works both indoors and outdoors, and operates at the photon level at nano-second speeds.

"The LiDAR Scanner improves the Measure app, making it faster and easier to automatically calculate someone's height, while helpful vertical and edge guides automatically appear to let users more quickly and accurately measure objects."

If you were looking to use the scanner on something a bit smaller, it's also featured in the latest iPhone 12, also released last year, which costs between $999 and $1,099.

Newsweek reached out to Tech Balloon for comment.