Apple plans to expand the iPhone 15 Pro Max's tetraprism camera with up to 5x optical zoom to both the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max this year, according to Taiwanese research firm TrendForce. This is a rumor we have heard from other sources before, including Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and our own reporting.
TrendForce briefly mentioned this information today in a press release focused on the overall smartphone camera lens market:
Following the successful launch of the iPhone 15 Pro Max with its exclusive Tetraprism telephoto zoom lens, the industry is expected to see an increase in the adoption of periscopic lens modules. Apple plans to bring this advanced hardware upgrade to the iPhone 16 Pro, making it accessible to more users in the Pro series.
In the iPhone 15 Pro Max, the tetraprism camera system has a "folded" design that allows it to fit inside the smartphone, enabling up to 5x optical zoom and up to 25x digital zoom. By comparison, the smaller iPhone 15 Pro remains limited to up to 3x optical zoom, in line with the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
It has been rumored that the iPhone 16 Pro will feature a larger 6.3-inch display, compared to the 6.1-inch iPhone 15 Pro. This change would increase the overall size of the device, which could provide additional internal space for a tetraprism camera.
Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 16 series in September.
Top Rated Comments
(We can quibble about “digital zoom,” but at least it’s accurate in the sense that it’s variable).
It's not because of the extra file size. You can compress these ProRAWs back down into HEIF (on a mac, on iPhone it adds the post-processing back in) and they are usually a smaller size compared to the stock HEIF (presumably due to the lack of sharpening, less "detail"). I have 48MP converted-HEIFS that are smaller than 24MP stock-HEIFs due to this.
The capability is there. I wish they would let us control this sharpening/processing more with the photographic styles or something.