A Secret Selfie Folder Is Coming to Your iPhone — Here's Why We Should Rejoice

Impact

Your selfies are about to snap up some brand new real estate on your iPhone. 

According to reports from 9to5 Mac and Apple Insider, the soon-to-be-released iOS 9 will include a separate folder within the Photo app for Kim Kardashian's favorite kind of picture. The two sites made the discovery after sneaking a look at the latest developer beta version of iOS 9.  

Here's a screenshot, courtesy of Apple Insider, which oddly shows a photo of someone's keyboard in the Selfies folder. Maybe Apple is still working out a few kinks.

Apple Insider

Selfies are empowering, and this folder is a superb addition. Finally, we'll be able to take selfies without fear that anyone peeking at our phone will catch a glimpse of an embarrassing series of photos of, say, our sunburned torso

We all take selfies — well, most of us, anyway — but having them discovered by others can be a cringeworthy experience. With a separate album, we can retain some semblance of privacy, forging on against the cruel world with some dignity intact. 

How it works: While it's unclear how exactly your phone will differentiate between selfies and non-selfies, Apple Insider theorizes that it will simply grab any photos taken with the front-facing lens and dump them into a separate folder: "A quick test shows iOS is not using computer vision algorithms to detect faces — specifically the face of an iPhone's user — for the feature, suggesting the folder's trigger is hardware-based."

Along with selfies, the latest beta also includes a separate folder for screenshots. It's a feature Android phones have had for a while now, Business Insider notes.

But while features like the selfie folder seem like great ideas, they're not set in stone. Because the system is still in testing mode, there's no guarantee the features will make it into the official release. The public beta version is scheduled for release sometime this month, and the official rollout is scheduled for sometime this fall

Still, if the user reaction is any indication, Apple may want to consider leaving it in:

Then again, maybe not.