Sony's Dual Camera to See Inclusion in Devices From 'Major Smartphone Players'

[Four oF NINE]

I can see this feature getting pushed back to the iPhone 7S
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I really hope that Apple isn't planning to turn their most popular phone into a second class citizen just to prop up that phablet monstrosity.
As it is the 6 barely fits my pocket. If the regular size phone ends up missing the 7 series' marquee feature I will probably skip it.

Steve Jobs would have a dim view of the direction of the iPhone IMO; he despised fragmentation

 

[nutmac]

You may get better pictures but you most assuredly won't be getting DSLR quality photos. Not sure why phrases like "DLSR -like", "DSLR quality", or "near DLSR" are being bandied about. Well, I'm totally sure why it's being done. I just wish it wasn't. It sets an expectation in the customer's mind that has no chance of being met.

While your argument is valid, there is also a huge degree of low light performance variance among DLSR cameras. So conservatively speaking, I am guessing iPhone 7 Plus can deliver noise level about as good as entry level DSLR cameras. And getting 2-3x optical zoom (albeit processed) is a huge selling point. I strongly suspect that in few years, only professionals will be using DSLR cameras, or those that benefit from specialized lenses (e.g., astrophotography).

 

[SgtPepper12]

Why? What's the benefit?

Better signal-to-noise ratio, as two lenses gather more light then one lens (of course not on a single sensor, but still). Theoretically that reduces noise by about 30%, but I'm sure they also use some fancy stuff with exposure and whatnot to optimize that. Also the resolution is somewhat better potentially. You can combine the two images in a clever way to enhance details. Don't expect anything too dramatic though. "DSLR-like" is complete buzz, it means nothing, there are great professional grade DSLRs out there and cheap DSLRs that are terrible. I believe there are also some other things possible with technology like that in the direction of stereoscopic/depth imaging, but to me that's pure gimmick and not interesting in the slightest.

And getting 2-3x optical zoom (albeit processed) is a huge selling point.

You don't usually call zoom optical when it's clearly digital and not optical.

 

[Shamanth]

I can see this feature getting pushed back to the iPhone 7S
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Steve Jobs would have a dim view of the direction of the iPhone IMO; he despised fragmentation

I just hope this doesnmt signal the end for feature parity between plus and non-plus models. OIS wasn't a visible feature so no big deal but this seems like they are pushing people towards the plus models which seems strange.(if indeed it turns out to be true)

 

[Thunderhawks]

Why? What's the benefit?

Straightens out cross eyed selfies?

 

[the future]

Photography is being computerized, basically. Multiple small lenses and sensors plus enough computing power will sooner or later match the picture quality of the big sensor + big lens combination (i.e. DSLR / mirrorless system cameras).

Just look at this crazy new camera: Light L 16 with 16 (SIXTEEN) lenses and sensors in a pocketable form factor:

 

[wozmatic]

They should put these in the new macbook pro

 

[macduke]

I known a LOT of people who are going to be super pissed if the only iPhone with the top-end camera is the Plus. You shouldn't need to buy a phone the size of your face just to get decent specs. Who cares if the phone is thin if you can't even hold it? I mean some people can, but I measured my hands. They're a little above average and I tried to deal with the Plus for a whole year. I mean, we'll see what happens but I'm slowly getting concerned about Apple. If I were to define my interests:

1. Designer and lover of design and all things UI/UX
2. Artist, specifically photography and painting
   
3. I like building things with my hands
   
4. Apple and tech enthusiast
   
5. Science, specifically meteorology and astronomy

Apple makes the top five. And even I'm worried. I follow everything closely and have scoffed for years at the naysayers. And yet here I find myself, a little worried. I hope I'm wrong. But when I hear things about the iPad Air 3's big feature being four speakers it makes me think twice. I get the sense that they are beginning to grasp at straws. The sales curve for the iPad is finally getting pretty scary. They're forecasting iPhone sales drops for the first time ever. They come out with poor designs like that battery case, or a mouse that can only be charged from the bottom? It's getting weird and I don't like it. Even the Macs are getting flimsier. Every store unit I've tried of the new MacBook seems flimsy where the top of the trackpad meets the keyboard area. It flexes a ton and doesn't seem durable at all. The Apple Watch shipped with a metric crapload of bugs and is only now finally starting to feel like a usable device, even though the taptic engine has gotten mushy.

TL;DR: It would be a shame for Apple, especially in their current negative forecast climate, to release such a breakthrough new camera system on only their more niche, phablet-sized device. Makes me worried, but I'll wait and see what really pans out.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

You may get better pictures but you most assuredly won't be getting DSLR quality photos. Not sure why phrases like "DLSR -like", "DSLR quality", or "near DLSR" are being bandied about. Well, I'm totally sure why it's being done. I just wish it wasn't. It sets an expectation in the customer's mind that has no chance of being met.

Ah yes. Takes me back to the days when we were emphatically told 128 Kbps MP3/AAC offered "CD-like" sound. Of course 256 Kbps is the standard today and still incomparable to CDs but no one remembers what they sounds like to compare so doesn't matter to them.

Silly to compare a camera phone to a dslr on many levels. It's not to knock the camera phone but it's like saying a big car has the same tow capacity as full sized pickup.

 

[KdParker]

Sweet. Nothing wrong with a better camera

 

[manu chao]

While your argument is valid, there is also a huge degree of low light performance variance among DLSR cameras. So conservatively speaking, I am guessing iPhone 7 Plus can deliver noise level about as good as entry level DSLR cameras.

Only through smart noise processing. A typical (ie, APS-C) DSLR, will still have an effective sensor size 10x of what the iPhone 7 Plus is likely to get. That's three stops of light. This will depend naturally a lot on what lenses are used on the DSLR, ie, whether one uses a f/1.4 prime or a f/5.6 kit zoom (there are four stops between those two). And whether the lenses/sensors, on the iPhone as on the DSLR, have image stabilisation.
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I known a LOT of people who are going to be super pissed if the only iPhone with the top-end camera is the Plus.

About the same number of people that were super pissed when only the 5.5" iPhone got image stabilisation?

TL;DR: It would be a shame for Apple, especially in their current negative forecast climate, to release such a breakthrough new camera system on only their more niche, phablet-sized device. Makes me worried, but I'll wait and see what really pans out.

Image stabilisation is almost as 'breakthrough' (enables two to three stops better low light performance for reasonably still subjects)

 

[thering1975]

like others the bandying round of the comment dslr like image is just utter marketing bull. one lens or two makes no different. You could have the best dslr in the world or mirrorless equivilant but its only ever as good as the glass thats attached, theres a reason why people spend upwards of £500 on a lens alone, the optical elements are designed to be perfect in many ways, and unfortunately regardless of what your phone manufacture of choice says the elements included in the phones lens are just never going to compete. Yes it might make a better smart phone camera image but no where near a dslr quality

 

[manu chao]

Photography is being computerized, basically. Multiple small lenses and sensors plus enough computing power will sooner or later match the picture quality of the big sensor + big lens combination (i.e. DSLR / mirrorless system cameras).

Just look at this crazy new camera: Light L 16 with 16 (SIXTEEN) lenses and sensors in a pocketable form factor:

Same principle is applied to space telescopes, combining multiple telescopes spread over large distances results in a virtual telescope with a much, much larger effective aperture.

In terms of 'noise performance', the total sensor area counts (if we assume entrance pupil of the individual lenses is proportional to sensor sensor and a similar AOV). For DOF, the distance between the individual lens units is relevant (ditto for diffraction, which is what is limiting space telescopes).
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I just hope this doesnmt signal the end for feature parity between plus and non-plus models. OIS wasn't a visible feature so no big deal

Much reduced motion blur (and less noise because a lower ISO was possible) is quite visible.

 

[tmanto02]

I really hope that Apple isn't planning to turn their most popular phone into a second class citizen just to prop up that phablet monstrosity.
As it is the 6 barely fits my pocket. If the regular size phone ends up missing the 7 series' marquee feature I will probably skip it.

Unfortunately I think that the way its going. They already began the trend with the 6+ which featured Optical Image Stabilization, which the regular 6 did not.

I'm with you - Personally I think its BS.

 

[69Mustang]

I known a LOT of people who are going to be super pissed if the only iPhone with the top-end camera is the Plus. You shouldn't need to buy a phone the size of your face just to get decent specs. Who cares if the phone is thin if you can't even hold it? I mean some people can, but I measured my hands. They're a little above average and I tried to deal with the Plus for a whole year. I mean, we'll see what happens but I'm slowly getting concerned about Apple. If I were to define my interests:

1. Designer and lover of design and all things UI/UX
2. Artist, specifically photography and painting
   
3. I like building things with my hands
   
4. Apple and tech enthusiast
   
5. Science, specifically meteorology and astronomy

Apple makes the top five. And even I'm worried. I follow everything closely and have scoffed for years at the naysayers. And yet here I find myself, a little worried. I hope I'm wrong. But when I hear things about the iPad Air 3's big feature being four speakers it makes me think twice. I get the sense that they are beginning to grasp at straws. The sales curve for the iPad is finally getting pretty scary. They're forecasting iPhone sales drops for the first time ever. They come out with poor designs like that battery case, or a mouse that can only be charged from the bottom? It's getting weird and I don't like it. Even the Macs are getting flimsier. Every store unit I've tried of the new MacBook seems flimsy where the top of the trackpad meets the keyboard area. It flexes a ton and doesn't seem durable at all. The Apple Watch shipped with a metric crapload of bugs and is only now finally starting to feel like a usable device, even though the taptic engine has gotten mushy.

TL;DR: It would be a shame for Apple, especially in their current negative forecast climate, to release such a breakthrough new camera system on only their more niche, phablet-sized device. Makes me worried, but I'll wait and see what really pans out.

You articulate your points well, so maybe you can help me understand. Feature parity doesn't exist in Macs. Basically, the more you pay, the more you get. Same with iPads. At the end of the day, the goal for Apple is to get you to spend as much as possible for their offerings. Outside of size, they need something else to entice customers to spend the extra dough on phone. The special features are that something else. I've seen some say that isn't fair. But when has fair been a component of selling products? I don't get it.

 

[sully54]

I known a LOT of people who are going to be super pissed if the only iPhone with the top-end camera is the Plus. You shouldn't need to buy a phone the size of your face just to get decent specs. Who cares if the phone is thin if you can't even hold it? I mean some people can, but I measured my hands. They're a little above average and I tried to deal with the Plus for a whole year. I mean, we'll see what happens but I'm slowly getting concerned about Apple. If I were to define my interests:

1. Designer and lover of design and all things UI/UX
2. Artist, specifically photography and painting
   
3. I like building things with my hands
   
4. Apple and tech enthusiast
   
5. Science, specifically meteorology and astronomy

Apple makes the top five. And even I'm worried. I follow everything closely and have scoffed for years at the naysayers. And yet here I find myself, a little worried. I hope I'm wrong. But when I hear things about the iPad Air 3's big feature being four speakers it makes me think twice. I get the sense that they are beginning to grasp at straws. The sales curve for the iPad is finally getting pretty scary. They're forecasting iPhone sales drops for the first time ever. They come out with poor designs like that battery case, or a mouse that can only be charged from the bottom? It's getting weird and I don't like it. Even the Macs are getting flimsier. Every store unit I've tried of the new MacBook seems flimsy where the top of the trackpad meets the keyboard area. It flexes a ton and doesn't seem durable at all. The Apple Watch shipped with a metric crapload of bugs and is only now finally starting to feel like a usable device, even though the taptic engine has gotten mushy.

TL;DR: It would be a shame for Apple, especially in their current negative forecast climate, to release such a breakthrough new camera system on only their more niche, phablet-sized device. Makes me worried, but I'll wait and see what really pans out.

I think there is a balance to be had between feature parity and holding back a viable piece of technology in order to keep feature parity.

One thing Apple hasn't been able to overcome are the laws of physics. The plus models are bigger and therefore has the volume to hold more tech than a non plus model. That's not marketing, that's just physics.

If there is a viable piece of technology that can be brought to market in the next iteration of the iPhone but one that can only fit in the larger model, wouldn't it be better to bring it to market on at least one model rather than leave it out completely?

The iPhone is now a mature product line and it can no longer be all things for all people. This would be like asking why Toyota fragments it's models by leaving features out on certain models.

 

[Gudi]

I know the renderings look nice, but nobody should under any circumstances link to Computer Bild. It's like a tabloid for technology. Every single sentence in this publication is an outrageous lie.

 

[Sevanw]

Good 'ol Apple, always gotta wait for other real OEMs to do the innovating before they can take their next step in their products. Be it camera innovations, display innovations, fab innovations, etc. They're simply are not a true OEM.

 

[latts]

I really hope that Apple isn't planning to turn their most popular phone into a second class citizen just to prop up that phablet monstrosity.
As it is the 6 barely fits my pocket. If the regular size phone ends up missing the 7 series' marquee feature I will probably skip it.

I have to agree with this, I don't see why the 7+ should get features which users of the 7 would also want. I could understand if Apple wanted to differentiate between the iPhone 5se and the iPhone 7 but not when both models are supposed to be the top of the line. For me the argument between buying a 7 and a 7+ is screen real estate and a bigger battery, which is the reason for the extra $100.

If Apple wanted to create a cheap 7 and more expensive 7 with extra features then fine you have a choice but if you don't want to larger phone for aesthetic reasons then you're left with no way to get things like OIS and dual camera.

 

[cableguy84]

I really dont see the big deal about these dual cameras. Anyways I'm keeping my 6s plus

 

[manu chao]

I have to agree with this, I don't see why the 7+ should get features which users of the 7 would also want. I could understand if Apple wanted to differentiate between the iPhone 5se and the iPhone 7 but not when both models are supposed to be the top of the line. For me the argument between buying a 7 and a 7+ is screen real estate and a bigger battery, which is the reason for the extra $100.

If Apple wanted to create a cheap 7 and more expensive 7 with extra features then fine you have a choice but if you don't want to larger phone for aesthetic reasons then you're left with no way to get things like OIS and dual camera.

The Plus model is also a bit thicker which allows for more depth for the camera module (the difference is small but relative to the size of the camera module it is significant enough).

 

[pat500000]

I wonder if it will be better than mirrorless camera.

 

[zachlegomaniac]

I know it's been discussed to death, but why do I have to buy the enormous phone to get the better camera?

 

[npmacuser5]

I find picture taking with my iPhone less then enjoyable in picture quality, features, and handling. Ok for a quick picture or selfie, difficult to hold, keep fingers out of lens, not real easy to see in outdoor lightening, as compared to dedicated cameras. I use the iPhone when my other cameras are not available, and for that it works great. Maybe it is just me, not excited to use the iPhone's camera.

 

[Black Magic]

I think there is a balance to be had between feature parity and holding back a viable piece of technology in order to keep feature parity.

One thing Apple hasn't been able to overcome are the laws of physics. The plus models are bigger and therefore has the volume to hold more tech than a non plus model. That's not marketing, that's just physics.

If there is a viable piece of technology that can be brought to market in the next iteration of the iPhone but one that can only fit in the larger model, wouldn't it be better to bring it to market on at least one model rather than leave it out completely?

The iPhone is now a mature product line and it can no longer be all things for all people. This would be like asking why Toyota fragments it's models by leaving features out on certain models.

I believe that the hardware differentiator for the Plus model should be better battery life and some kind of exclusive storage option. Apple rarely makes polarizing moves, so I doubt we will see this exclusive camera option rumor become reality.