Although I’ll probably strike out on the rest of these XD Is Key 14 Orientation Information?įrom taking the last set of images, I analyzed the rest of the Maker Apple values to see if there was some other relation between when the phone took a portrait and landscape photo. At this point, I’m feeling like a genius for guessing what those three numbers meant. Yes these 3 numbers represent either an acceleration vector, or the direction of the earth (which is the same as the direction of acceleration when the phone is at rest). Here’s the values given when holding the phone (facing down means the back camera is pointed down):Īfter this test, it seems that my guess was correct. I’ll round the numbers to either 0, 1, or -1, assuming they are within 0.1 of the rounded number. To test this, I took some pictures while holding my phone in different orientations. A 3 element vector, like this metadata element, commonly represents a value in 3 dimensional space. From my work on writing a free-fall timing app using the phone’s sensors, this reminds me of the vectors for acceleration and orientation. Key 8 seems to be three values which are between -1 and 1. Is Key 8 the Direction of the Earth from the Camera? Still, even if there isn’t a serial number in the Maker Apple metadata, many have been perplexed by its meaning.

Finding a “Serial Number” key in this metadata would be incredibly useful to trace photos to a given phone. I’ll make some guesses as to what the “Maker Apple” keys mean, and run tests to check those guesses. Maker Nikon metadata has many similar keys and some additional keys about camera settings. For example, Maker Canon metadata includes the following keys: Owner Name, Camera Serial Number, Image Serial Number, Flash Exposure Comp, Continuous Drive, Lens Model, Firmware, and Aspect Ratio Info.

Other companies like Nikon and Canon add their own “Maker” metadata, but those keys are well understood.

Apple serial number mystery by analysis