iPhone 16 Pro tipped for periscope lens in 2024
The iPhone 16 Pro could be set for a periscope lens in 2024 after an exclusive debut on the iPhone 15 Pro Max later this year.
That’s the fresh claim being made by The Elec, a South Korean website with a decent track record of reporting from the local supply chain. In this case, that involves LG Innotek and Zihua Electronics, which will apparently be supplying folded zoom actuators to Apple.
We’ve previously reported on claims that Apple’s 2023 iPhones will see the adoption of a so-called periscope lens, enabling a much deeper camera zoom than usual. We could be looking at a 5x to 10x zoom rather than the 3x zoom of the iPhone 14 Pro.
Despite this advance, it’s generally been agreed that this new periscope lens feature will skip the smaller flagship iPhone 15 Pro this year. Rather, it will be exclusive to the super-sized (and super-priced) iPhone 15 Pro Max – or, if another rumour pans out, the newly renamed iPhone 15 Ultra.
If you’re a small phone fan who’s worried that this could be a size-related constraint, the latest report should be of some comfort. It states that while Apple is indeed only bringing one periscope lens component to the iPhone 15 range, it’ll be applying two to the iPhone 16 range in 2024, bringing the iPhone 16 Pro into the equation.
We’re excited to see what Apple does with this periscope lens technology. As is often the case, we’ve already seen this applied in the Android phone market, and to brilliant effect in the case of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and the Oppo Find X2 Pro before it.
Oppo’s ahead-of-its-time periscope system, announced four years ago, is pictured above. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple can arrive late but add something extra, as it tends to do.
