The iPhone’s camera has always rested at or near the top of the pile when it comes to smartphone photography. Whether the iPhone’s infamous camera bump bothers you today as much as it did when the iPhone 6 was announced isn’t as important as the quality of the pictures the smartphone’s image sensor captures.
This week, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo obtained information about the next generation of iPhone, suggesting that a version of the iPhone 7 is being developed with a dual-camera setup. While it’s unclear if this hardware will only be available on select models of the next iPhone, potential improvements to image quality stemming from a second sensor are certainly interesting.
Last year, Apple acquired an Israeli company called LinX Imaging, known for working on technology designed to enable improved optical zoom while maintaining a shallow camera assembly in order to fit in a smartphone. The report suggests manufacturing the new camera system will only be available in low volume at first. If that’s the case, the new assembly may only be available in select iPhones, like the larger option, the iPhone 7 Plus.
Since Apple started releasing two completely new phone models each year with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in 2014, Apple has only put the most advanced camera, with optical image stabilization, in the Plus model. If this report is accurate, that trend will continue with the double-camera setup.
The concept of two lenses in a smartphone, regardless of the exact details regarding their use, is interesting to digital photographers. Professional photographers are required to carry around a variety of swappable lenses, with each being designed for a particular situation and conditions. With multiple lenses in one camera body, or on a smartphone, smart software can automatically switch between lenses depending on context and the environment. It’s unlikely that Apple will use a dual-sensor setup to enable depth effects like the ones found on the HTC One M8, but an open API may bring that functionality to third-party apps.
Another feature, native optical zoom, is one thing iPhone photographers have wanted for many years, as current solutions require purchasing separate interchangeable lenses, or using detail-damaging digital zoom.
[source]MacRumors[/source]
