The iPhone 15 almost sounds too good to be true. In a new leak shared on Twitter (via MacRumors), user RGloudS says the new iPhone models will be the first global phones with a hybrid lens.
That means the iPhone 15 will have a single glass element and six plastic elements on the main camera. With an ƒ/1.7 aperture, an improvement over the iPhone 14 Pro models, the primary lens will absorb up to 20% more light, making capturing images in low light less challenging.
This change is potentially a teaser of what Apple plans to do with the iPhone 16 Pro Max camera next year, which will use an eight-part hybrid lens design with two glass and six plastic elements while also introducing hybrid lenses on the telephoto and ultra-wide cameras. These changes were first rumored to come to this year’s iPhone 15 Pro Max, but analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple scrapped these plans.
Besides the larger aperture for all four iPhone 15 models, Apple is also rumored to bring the same 48MP sensor from the iPhone 14 Pro main camera to the base models. MacRumors notes that since the iPhone 14 has a ƒ/1.5 aperture, it could mean that the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus will have an aperture downgrade, although Apple can compensate with the hybrid lens and the A16 Bionic chip.
Analyst Jeff Pu said Apple decided to make these changes with the base models as it learned from the poor sales of the iPhone 14: “Both iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus are now expected to have a three-stacked sensor with a 48-megapixel wide lens. Currently, the 48-megapixel camera is exclusive to the iPhone 14 Pro models. However, the midrange iPhone 15 models still won’t have a telephoto lens for optical zoom or a LiDAR scanner.”
RGloudS recently said that Apple could support 40W wired charging and 20W MagSafe charging speeds on future iPhones. While there were rumors they might be available on this year’s iPhone 15 Pro models, they will likely debut on the iPhone 16 lineup instead.
They also mentioned a new charging protocol and power chip as reasons for Apple to boost iPhone charging speeds thanks to stacked batteries, making fast charging more efficient.
BGR will keep following the latest iPhone 15 rumors, and we’ll report back once we learn more about the new series.
