In his latest report, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says the regular iPhone 15 models will adopt a stacked-designed Contact Image Sensor, which helps capture more light, in addition to the 48MP wide-angle camera.
Interestingly enough, this feature won’t be available for the iPhone 15 Pro models, as the analyst believes Apple will need another year to add stacked-designed CIS camera modules to all iPhones. “Following two 2H23 iPhone 15 standard models, two 2H24 iPhone 16 Pro models will also adopt stacked-designed CIS, so Sony’s high-end CIS capacity will continue to be tight in 2024,” he writes.
With Sony having a hard time producing the high-end CIS module, the company’s rival supplier Will Semi will benefit from it. Kuo says: “As Sony’s high-end CIS capacity remains tight, Will Semi’s high-end CIS (48MP+) market share will continue to grow rapidly. It is expected that 2H23 high-end CIS shipments will increase by about 50% HoH to 36 million units, and shipments in 3Q23 and 4Q23 will be about 16 million and 20 million units, respectively. Benefiting from the significant increase in orders in 2H23, Will Semi’s high-end CIS shipments in 2023 will grow by about 35% YoY.”
In addition to this report, analyst Jeff Pu previously said that Apple learned from the poor iPhone 14 sales and it will include better features for the regular iPhone 15 models: “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.”
For next year’s iPhone 16 models, rumors expect Apple to increase the display size of the Pro models and offer a periscope lens for both versions. Analyst Ross Young says this will be possible thanks to the larger display size, which could help house more components on the smaller Pro model.
In addition, the iPhone 16 Pro Max might add an eight-part hybrid lens with two glass elements and six plastic elements, which will improve over the rumored six-part hybrid lens expected for this year’s iPhone 15 Pro Max.
BGR will continue reporting on the latest rumors regarding the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 as we learn more about them.
