The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus came with a feature called Retina Flash that lets you take better selfies in low-light conditions. Retina flash illuminates the display to serve as a flash. This extra flash does a good job of illuminating selfie faces. Unfortunately, this functionality is limited to the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. You are out of luck if you own the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 5S, or other older models.
But there are ways to get retina flash-like functionality on your older iPhone. You can get this functionality in two ways: either jailbreak your iPhone or use a third-party app that replicates what retina flash does.
Get retina flash with a jailbreak tweak
Even before Apple came up with retina flash, a jailbreak tweak called FrontFlash has been illuminating the display to act as a flash for years. Available on Cydia, FrontFlash adds the flash feature directly to the stock Camera app. It increases the display brightness to the maximum, and displays a white screen to replicate the flash in iPhone 6S. The jailbreak tweak is available for free, and has recently been updated to support the iOS 9.
Head over to Cydia and search for “FrontFlash Cydia tweak.” After installing the tweak, open up the Camera app and you will see an extra option to toggle flash for front-facing pictures and videos. Of course, it doesn’t have the advanced technology that iPhone 6S boasts off, but the FrontFlash experience is very close.
Use third-party apps
Don’t want to jailbreak your iPhone? There are a few good apps in iTunes store that turn your display screen into a flashlight. Two noteworthy third-party apps are “Take Selfies Free” and Selfshot.” Both are available for free and serve the purpose very well. Selfshot enables you to take selfie photos/videos in extremely low-light conditions like a dance club or a party. A small part of the screen shows the camera shot while the remaining screen flashes with maximum brightness. Selfshot also allows you to take photos in portrait and landscape mode.
