iPhone 16 Pro to Feature Major Telephoto Lens Revision

[Prof.]

I think it's been well established that we have hit peak smartphone. Until the next big thing comes out, say in 10-20 years, probably by a company we laugh at today... this is it, folks.

It's unlikely we'll have a 2007 iPhone moment anytime in the near future.

 

[now i see it]

The race to 600mm. Who’s going to get there first?

 

[Bigkool2inSC]

it would be nice if the next iPhone upgrade cycle was not on the September (ish) typical schedule.
make a great phone and announce it when it's ready. it doesn't have to be around the 1 year mark.

 

[sw1tcher]

This is good news. The camera bump has become big, fat, and ugly.
It has got to go!

Yeah, but as with Dynamic Island and the notch previously, the camera bump has become an easily recognizable characteristic of an iPhone.

Everytime I see the notch, Dynamic Island, or camera bump, in the 2 or 3 camera lens arrangement, I instantly know it's an iPhone.

 

[orbital~debris]

so the iPhone 16 Pro models could face "price pressure" next year.

So at least iPhone will be in solidarity with a proportion of customers, who've themselves been feeling "price pressure" for a while now!

 

[CarAnalogy]

Those number seem kinda low. I would hope they beat 10x instead of just matching Samsung.

They still can’t even match Samsung more than a year later. Based on the pictures I’ve seen, 10x should be great. Apple already claims it’s too hard to aim at 10x. Of course they’ll forget they said that when they too go to 10x and just use a viewfinder like Samsung does.

 

[SurferPup]

I understand it would not be financially viable for  to change manufacturing plants to allow customers to configure their iPhones like we can upgrade our Macs and iPads. I would like to include mmWave antennae in my iPhones and if I had to trade off a function I would choose removing the cutting edge camera technology.

 

[Skyscraperfan]

Making the camera thinner is the wrong direction. They could use the new wiggle room to make the camera even better while keeping its length. Or they could finally with an Apple Camera that has an APS-C Sensor or bigger.

 

[ccsicecoke]

Nothing beats a sphere sensor simulating human’s eyes

 

[tgwaste]

Now that I have usb-c its gonna take something considerable for me to upgrade next year and this aint it. This might be the end of the yearly cycle for me.

 

[highdefjunkie]

iPhone 16 Pro Max - 10X
iPhone 16 Pro - 5X
iPhone 16 and 16 Plus - 3X

Something tells me you’re 100% correct.

 

[kaycrystal626]

Samsung already working on a 200 mega pixels camera. Apple needs to catch up!

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I think it's been well established that we have hit peak smartphone. Until the next big thing comes out, say in 10-20 years, probably by a company we laugh at today... this is it, folks.

It's unlikely we'll have a 2007 iPhone moment anytime in the near future.

Been saying that ad nauseam. There's only SO much you can do with a smartphone or tablet. We are at the point of diminishing returns. The most exciting thing that gets people's undies in a knot are the yearly new colors.

 

[Reached]

Apple will continue to trickle out features, staying just barely competitive

"staying barely competitive" and still they are by far the most profitable smart phone maker on the market... What does competitive mean in your world?

 

[darngooddesign]

If they are offering 10x, then it will be digital zoom from 1-9.9 for the main lens. This means it is worse for most people for day to day usage.

So unless you buy iPhone for bird photography, it is time for Apple to add a 4th lens, if they indeed intend to give us a super lens.

I agree.

 

[darngooddesign]

Thank goodness I skipped the 15 Pro. Definitely getting the 16 Pro.

I hear the 17 Pro will be amazing.

 

[mdelvecchio]

Yeah they’re gonna squeeze that 5x telephoto into the regular sized pro no problem, even though they said they could ‘only fit it in the pro max’. That was just to push people to buy the bigger, more expensive phone and stretch out the diminishing new features. They did the same thing with the dual cameras on the plus years ago.

Paranoid nonsense. You’re referring to OIS which was originally in the Max only. Reality is, miniaturization is a form of engineering optimization that occurs after initial engineering. Crawl, walk, run. You get better and figure it out as you go. That’s why storage and RAM didn’t begin at today’s capacities and got here over time. Incremental improvement is the name of the game, my dude.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

it would be nice if the next iPhone upgrade cycle was not on the September (ish) typical schedule.
make a great phone and announce it when it's ready. it doesn't have to be around the 1 year mark.

They way things have gone from "no new Macs in 2023" and "no more events in 2023" to pretty much all Macs, all M-series chips, multiple iPads, AppleTV Pro Gamer edition, etc. why don't they just bring on this improved iPhone 16 tonight too? I hear it can also levitate heavy objects and double as a lightsaber. Something about healing the sick and raising the dead as well... possibly with transporters and/or warp drive. Bring it on!

Trick or Treat. 🎃

 

[fromgophonetoiphone]

If they are offering 10x, then it will be digital zoom from 1-9.9 for the main lens. This means it is worse for most people for day to day usage.

So unless you buy iPhone for bird photography, it is time for Apple to add a 4th lens, if they indeed intend to give us a super lens.

I know it's not a popular sentiment here, but Samsung's 1x, 3x, 10x makes a lot of sense. It keeps relatively even spacing between the zoom ranges so while digital zoom at 2.9x isn't optimal, with today's image stacking technology it's at least far better than an old fashion 290% resize and crop digital zoom.

Plus, 3x is a pretty well used focal length that's close to the popular 85mm lens used in portraits. Some may like 5x, but I do think it's on the tighter end of what photographers are used to and anything beyond that really isn't used in everyday photos but more specific telephoto zoom applications like wildlife or just showing off to friends you can see the person in tall building half way across town in their office shuffling papers just because you have that zoom ability. It's neat but honestly limited in true day to day use. Like for instance I respect the 10x zoom of my Pixel a lot and use it rather liberally just like I do 2x since it's utilizing the center of the sensor, rather than a traditional digital zoom, but even then when I look through my albums, there's only a few 10x photos that I see. There's not that many. Far more 5x photos.

 

[Kevin2055]

It's great that I skipped 15 pro.

 

[Kevin2055]

Maybe it's time to add a real single zoom lens.

 

[darngooddesign]

I think they should choose their #X focal lengths based on how they blend with the digital cropping.

48MP Focal Length -> 24MP Crop -> 12MP Crop -> 48MP Focal Length -> 24MP Crop -> 12MP Crop > etc.

 

[darngooddesign]

Maybe it's time to add a real single zoom lens.

Unless you would be happy with a relatively slow lens, or a much thicker phone, there's no space for the optics of even an f2.8 zoom.

 

[Jensend]

It's funny how people were praising the reduction of the "moment of inertia" of the iPhones 15 Pro. A higher of inertia make it easier to hold a camera steady for telephoto shots.

 

[Lakersfan74]

Give us something to trade my 15PM in for