The purpose of a ring light is quite simple: it emits a soft light that illuminates your face while eliminating shadows. It gives you a “glow up,” essentially.
You see ring lights used to elevate portrait and macro photography, as well as make you look better on videos — there are numerous ring light accessories that are available for webcams and digital vlogging cameras.
Quite a few ring light accessories are compatible with smartphones, too. They attach to your smartphone and make you shine a little more on selfies, portrait photos and video calls.
To date, you’ve been able to buy a ring light accessory for your iPhone — but Apple hasn’t officially sold one. Well, that just changed.
ShiftCam SnapLight
The ShiftCam SnapLight is the first MagSafe-compatible ring light that Apple sells. It magnetically attaches to the back of your iPhone (12 or later) or any MagSafe-compatible iPhone case. Its flexible hinge allows you to use it in portrait or landscape modes and when using both front-facing or rear-facing cameras.
As far as features, the SnapLight has four different brightness settings you can shuffle between depending on how bright you want to illuminate yourself or your subject(s). There’s also a mirror in the center of the ring light, so you can give yourself some last-minute touchups when using your iPhone’s main cameras.
