One of the most significant changes to my law practice that came out of the pandemic in 2020 was the tremendous increase in the use of videoconferencing. Indeed, it was in April 2020 that I started to use Microsoft Teams on my iPad for videoconferencing. Since then, Microsoft Teams has become a regular part of my law practice. I work in a law firm with 20 offices across 11 states, and I regularly have meetings with my colleagues using Microsoft Teams, which is great because it doesn’t matter where in the country everyone is located. I also use Microsoft Teams frequently when talking to my clients. I occasionally videoconference with a court, and those tend to be on Zoom or another platform, but Microsoft Teams is the videoconference platform that I use the most.
Although I have occasionally used Microsoft Teams on an iPad for videoconferencing since 2020, I don’t use it very often because I don’t like using the built-in camera on the iPad. First, it is located to the left of the screen, which is awkward because it often looks to others like you are looking to the side. Second, the camera is zoomed in a little too much; my face appears too big in the window. Third, because my iPad is typically at an angle on a dedicated stand like my Stabile PRO or using my iPad’s Smart Folio cover, people look up at me a little and see the ceiling behind me. It just isn’t a look that I like very much. Fourth, the quality of the front-facing camera on the iPad is just okay. Here is an example:
When Apple released iPadOS 17 on September 18, 2023, one of the new features was iPad support for external cameras. You could plug a webcam into the iPad’s USB-C port and then use that external camera for FaceTime calls instead of the built-in camera. However, the feature hasn’t been supported by third-party videoconferencing apps.
Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it added external camera support to the Microsoft Teams app on the iPad. If the cord on your webcam has a USB-C connector, simply plug the webcam into the iPad. The camera used by Teams will automatically change from the iPad’s built-in camera to the external camera. The webcam that I use in my office, a Logitech HD Pro C922 webcam, has a USB connector on its cord, so I simply attached my HyperDrive 6-in-1 USB-C Hub to my iPad (which gives you lots of different ports) and then plugged in the camera to the USB port on that hub. Instantly, the camera used in the Teams app changed to my Logitech webcam, and I vastly prefer how I look:
Although you could put your webcam on top of your iPad, I think it looks better to have the webcam up a little higher, at your eye level. In the above picture, my webcam was sitting on top of my computer monitor. However, I always carry a small portable tripod in my Tom Bihn bag, which I have with me all the time, and I can use it with my webcam to give it more height. The next time that I am traveling and I want to use my iPad for a videoconference, that is the solution that I will use.
I don’t know why it took Microsoft so long to add this feature, but I’m glad it is here now. Hopefully, Zoom will add support soon. I virtually never use the Webex app on my iPad, but I see that the Webex app also recently added support for an external camera.