iPhone 18 Pro to Kick Off Apple's Four-Part Camera Upgrade Plan

[uacd]

Is that genuinely a 1.12" camera sensor, or some simulated number via optics? My aging, but still amazing, Nikon D3500 has a physical CCD size of something like a 0.9" x 0.7", and I can't imagine an iPhone having anything that big.

1/1.12 is quite a small sensor compared to D3500. 1/1.12 is slightly smaller version of a 1 inch sensor which is about 3 times smaller than Nikon DX APS-C.

While 1/1.12 and 1 inch sensors are impressive in modern smartphones they have several problems, one of which is that they are unable to focus closely because optics are very small, as well as they protrude a lot from the phone (the notorious “plateau”. I.e. smth like old Sony RX100 will blow iPhone out of the water when tests will be done side-by-side.

Also for some reason Apple still doesn’t offer full exposures. This limits night shooting capability. They are unable to shoot exposures longer than 1 second, most dedicated cameras offer 30 seconds or even a bulb mode (unlimited amount of time controlled by the external trigger).

In fact, nothing will beat old Nikon even in 15 years from now, even a newer Nikon, all thanks to softer processing and larger sensor size than iPhones🙂

 

[uacd]

I'm looking forward to the day where Apple, Samsung and/or Google come out with a proper 1-inch sensor on the main camera. It'll be fun to see how it competes with all the point & shoots that have regained popularity recently.

It will be pretty bad. Plateau will be 1.5 times larger than now and minimum focusing distance will be close to like 25 cm, as well as image quality will get ruined by algorithms anyway. It is solely upgrade for upgrade’s sake. Modern 17 Pro is not too far behind 1’ - it is already 1/1.28, yet it doesn’t seem to do much in terms of image quality, individual sensor design matters a lot, i.e. 1/1.28 from Sony might be very different in real world to 1/28 from Samsung thanks to internal processing and demosaicing techniques.

Or else they would need to radically change design of the smartphone and make them look like ugly big bricks from 90s. Btw GoPro has released Mission 1 camera series that feature 1 inch sensor, but GoPro is “built differently”, it is a compact camera but it is not a “thin slate”. That’s also why point-and-shoot cameras look differently,

Some day we will hit the ceiling in camera quality in phones, as well as in terms of processing power

 

[uacd]

People and technology are funny. We now have these amazing quality cameras always with us... and my daughter and all of her friends want old-school point and shoot digital cameras.

Photography is art. Same like painting, poem, music or film.

On the web people often get offended or triggered not just by other people posting AI generated music or art but also by something as simple as a blogpost.

Since 2019 iPhone photographs remind me of something artificial, generated and what in fact lacks “soul”. That what really offends me as a hobbyist photographer: when multibillion dollar company “knows what is best” and crams in as much algorithms as the image signal processor is capable to work with.

When Apple, Samsung, Google and other companies have started baking-in tremendous amount of plastic, “clinical” post processing, people have started noticing and thats when they jumped ship for old cameras (that surprisingly still work good).

Children also want something real, skeoumorphic and something one can touch. Phone can’t do that because it is too dumbed down. Younger generation sees that processing is different too, they call it “vibe”. And some companies are actually planning to bank on it, there were news Canon is planning to release 3 new point-and-shoots in 2026, a strong move in already dead market! They said they are going to “test the waters” if this trend is real or simply influenced by TikTok

 

[joshwithachance]

It will be pretty bad. Plateau will be 1.5 times larger than now and minimum focusing distance will be close to like 25 cm, as well as image quality will get ruined by algorithms anyway. It is solely upgrade for upgrade’s sake. Modern 17 Pro is not too far behind 1’ - it is already 1/1.28, yet it doesn’t seem to do much in terms of image quality, individual sensor design matters a lot, i.e. 1/1.28 from Sony might be very different in real world to 1/28 from Samsung thanks to internal processing and demosaicing techniques.

Or else they would need to radically change design of the smartphone and make them look like ugly big bricks from 90s. Btw GoPro has released Mission 1 camera series that feature 1 inch sensor, but GoPro is “built differently”, it is a compact camera but it is not a “thin slate”. That’s also why point-and-shoot cameras look differently,

Some day we will hit the ceiling in camera quality in phones, as well as in terms of processing power

You make some VERY insightful, and valid, points.👏🏼

 

[t0rqx]

Cancelled my iPhone 18 Pro preorder and weighing in to skip the 19 Pro too.

 

[eifelbube]

This will be the best camera they've ever shipped in an iPhone! I think I'm going to love it!

Mmhh, what is going to happen to best ever and going to love it. By the time the 18 is announced, there will be a new CEO.

 

[svish]

Variable aperture will be useful but would like to have a bigger sensor along with it. Also a 200 megapixel telephoto lens will be good and if it makes it to 20th anniversary iPhone, all the better but looks like it might not happen immediately. Would also like to see some kind of telephoto lens on the foldable iPhone.

 

[macduke]

Haha, indeed. My 16 year old took over my 2MP Nikon Coolpix 2100 from like 2003ish, and uses it all the time. She can carry it at school, too, since phones are completely banned.

It still takes surprisingly good photos.

I gave my 12 year old daughter my old Sony RX100 last year. I bought it when she was born in 2014 so I could have a high quality camera smaller than my dSLR on me at all times for taking photos of her as a baby. Now she also takes it everywhere and it’s allowed at school.

She has been very careful with it, but I’m concerned about how many photos she stores on the SD card before dumping to her iPad and into our iCloud. Modern SD cards hold a crapload of 20mp photos, so if she ever loses the camera or the card corrupts, she’s going to be missing a ton of photos.

 

[RichHI]

I must be one of the few people who uses an iPhone Pro Max to make phone calls and read emails. Hoping for more Satellite service. It is cool when people say I take such good photographs but somehow it is always seems more mechanical then artistic. I guess it is the same as Youngsters longing for Analog Sound for their music.