Apple iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max to launch with periscope zoom cameras

Analyst Jeff Pu has delivered another prediction about the state of telephoto optics for the iPhone 15 Pro series. Only a few weeks ago, Pu claimed that the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max would have cameras with 10x optical zoom. While Ming-Chi Kuo floated the idea in December that Apple would switch to periscope cameras for the iPhone 15 series, Pu has revised his prediction.

Supposedly, Apple will equip the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max with 5x zoom cameras, not 10x ones. The camera in question will still utilise periscope optics though, typically where a prism refracts light to the image sensor through lenses that have been stacked horizontally, not vertically. Doing so provides camera manufacturers with more space and prevents smartphones from having huge zoom lenses jutting from their back panels.

This technology is not new; Huawei achieved 5x optical zoom with the P30 Pro in 2019. Likewise, Samsung introduced the technology a year later in the Galaxy S20 Ultra, which it improved to 10x optical zoom with the Galaxy S21 Ultra. Even if Pu's prediction is accurate, it will be 2023 at the earliest before the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max arrive. By that time, Samsung would have released the Galaxy S22 Ultra and the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which will include camera innovations of their own.

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