Wesley Hilliard
A supply chain report suggests that the iPhone 16 Pro could use molded glass lenses to reduce camera bump thickness and weight while increasing magnification distance.
Previous reports have already suggested the iPhone 16 Pro could get the 120 mm Telephoto camera thanks to the rumored larger device size. Molded glass could help with this implementation due to its thinner and lighter nature.
According to a report from Economic Daily News, suppliers are already gearing up for the 2024 iPhone lineup. The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max could utilize molded glass lenses to save space and weight.
Molded lenses also provide greater magnification for their given size, so Apple could choose to keep the 24 mm and 120 mm focal lengths while using much thinner lenses. This would especially help with space saving on the smaller iPhone 16 Pro, which will already be overstuffed with the tetraprism crystal for the longer Telephoto lens.
Since the iPhone 16 Pro will have plenty of space, Apple could take one of two routes. It could reduce the size and weight of the camera bump while maintaining existing focal lengths or choose to extend its 120 mm focal length even more.
Due to the complexity of developing molded lenses, manufacturers are already preparing for the iPhone 16 Pro lineup. Apple dominates supply chain orders, but other manufacturers may also attempt to implement molded lenses as part of a greater trend.
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6 Comments
None of the IPhone Pro's 3 lenses feature "optical zoom" and that term should be banned when describing them. It's really misleading. They are each a fixed focal length lens--13mm for the ultrawide, 24mm for the wide or "main" lens and either 77mm or 120mm for the telephoto lens, depending on whether you have the 15 Pro or 15 Pro Max. None of these lenses zoom optically--all zooming is accomplished via digital zoom, through a combination of sensor cropping and computational photography. This is why I view the new 120mm lens as a step backward in iPhone photography quality. It forces the the 24mm main lens to handle everything from 25mm to 119mm via digital zoom, which compromises quality in the range that's used for over 90% of all photos. Appleinsider, to its credit, is the only publication I've read to show this compromise in photos that compared the 77mm and 120mm lenses. The difference is not subtle, which is to be expected when you push a 24mm lens that hard digitally to be a jack-of-all-trades. Of course, if you're a sports or wildlife photographer who regularly shoots at 120mm and above, you will benefit from the new lens, which trounces the 77mm at those focal lengths, but that's not most people. In fact, I'm really hoping the 16 Pro does NOT get the 120mm lens next year, and I think I will stay put with my 15 Pro if it does.
Stop the presses. A possible thinner IPhone? Who would have thunk it?
Yes I have been driven mad by all the references in almost all the reviews to references to "zoom" when they mean "telephoto" and by the references to focal lengths, e.g. "120mm", "35mm" etc. without stating that these are the 35mm film full-frame equivalent focal lengths!!!!!!! Then the Apple-suggested use of "5x" when, 120mm (35mm film full-frame equivalent focal length) is around 2.4x. Even respected photography journals are using the wrong nomenclature. Desist.