For the past several years, iPhone rumors have been all but inescapable. Apple desperately wants to keep its product announcements secret, but the company has struggled to plug the leaks. As a result, we often know everything there is to know about a new iPhone months before the official reveal. That seems to be the case for the iPhone 14, which has been thoroughly spoiled already. And now, a brand new leak might have spoiled what could be the biggest upgrade of the iPhone 15.
Periscope lens could be the biggest iPhone 15 upgrade
According to a new report from analyst Jeff Pu (via 9to5Mac), Apple wants to bring a periscope lens with 5x optical zoom to the iPhone 15 Pro models. Pu says that Apple is currently in negotiations with China’s Lante Optics. Pu expects Lante Optics to supply the periscope lenses that Apple will use next year. In his report, Pu also says Apple has already received component samples and should make a final decision regarding its periscope lens order by May 2022.
If Apple decides to go forward with the order, we should see periscope lenses on both the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max (or whatever Apple calls its 2023 iPhone series). Additionally, Lante Optics should be able to supply Apple with over 100 million components.
As 9to5Mac notes, this isn’t the first we’ve heard about a major camera upgrade for the iPhone 15.
Late last year, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted in a note to investors that Apple would add a 48-megapixel camera to the iPhone 14 and a periscope lens to the iPhone 15. At that time, Kuo explained “the continued upgrading of the iPhone camera lens in the next two years will help Daliguang market share, revenue and profit growth.” Daliguang is one of Apple’s suppliers in Taiwan.
Looking to the future of the iPhone
It’s never too early to start speculation about a future iPhone, but we’re still nearly two years out from the iPhone 15. That said, there might not be much left to uncover about the iPhone 14. We expect Apple’s next flagship phone to be the first without a notch since the iPhone X arrived in 2017. Apple did decrease the size of the notch on the iPhone 13, but it’s still a prominent element of the display. Rumors suggest that Apple will eliminate the notch altogether this fall, replacing it with two small holes, one of which will be pill-shaped.
