The best sign to take a rumor seriously is when it comes directly from suppliers. If they start making a component or if there are rivalries between them to do so with Apple as a customer, that component exists and in some way is “confirmed” as part of a future company product.
This is what we can say about periscopic lenses that have been considered for the upcoming iPhone 15: DigiTimes recently published that there will be two vendors producing these lenses for the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro Max. And it will bring several important advances.
An iPhone with up to 6x optical zoom
The idea behind these periscopic lenses is largely hidden in their very name: instead of placing the lenses one after the other and aligned with the rest of the camera components, part of these lenses are placed perpendicular and “L” shaped. “Mimicking what the periscopes of a submarine already do.
With this, more space is gained to be able to improve these lenses without sacrificing too much the thickness of the device itself. And that results in improvements like an optical zoom of 5 or 6 timescompared to the 3 that the iPhone 14 Pro currently has.
At first, Largan Precision was going to be the exclusive supplier of these periscopic lenses, but now GSEO has been added as another supplier with some experience in this technology since 2021. Additionally, Apple has learned the lesson of not depending on a sole supplier. after the problems in China.
The iPhone 15 should be presented in September, at which time they will confirm if these objectives have ended up being realized or not. The iPhone 16 is also expected to ship this technology in 2024, expanding to more models and not just the Pro Max.
Picture | James A. Molnar
In Applesphere | The iPhone 15 Pro, completely filtered: these will be its cameras and its screen
