Recently leaked schematics of the iPhone 14 Pro revealed a larger camera bump, but as per a credible source, that aesthetic change actually has to do with an upgraded 48-megapixel camera that Apple is bringing in 2022. So far, the rumor mill has been preoccupied with what the iPhone 14 Pro and its Max sibling will look like from the front, thanks to a reportedly notch-less design.
Several rumors have pointed to Apple ditching the boat-shaped notch on its Pro iPhones in 2022 and opting for a pill + punch-hole design instead. Essentially, the screen will have two holes drilled at the top — a pill-shaped cutout to house the Face ID sensors, and a circular hole of the same height for the selfie camera. The design hasn’t been seen so far in the smartphone industry, which has left a lot of people wondering how it will look in real life.
Detailed schematics of the iPhone 14 Pro models were recently leaked by Max Weinbach detailing the larger camera bump on the iPhone Pro models. TFI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has now explained what the huge camera bump is actually for. Kuo’s Tweet mentions that Apple has fitted a 48-megapixel camera on the iPhone 14 Pro and its Max variant, up from the 12-megapixel wide-angle camera seen on their predecessors. Thanks to a more megapixel-heavy snapper, the diagonal length of the CMOS image sensor (CIS) has reportedly increased by a healthy 25 to 35 percent margin. Additionally, the height of the entire sensor and its lens elements have also increased between five and 10 percent.
Meaningful Upgrades, Only On The Pro Models
Apple has been increasing the size of the camera island on iPhones for the past couple of years. It mostly has to do with the imaging hardware inside being upgraded. Take, for example, the iPhone 13 Pro Max, which arrived with an upgraded wide-angle camera that had a larger aperture and bigger sensor size. The ultra-wide-angle camera also got a wider aperture lens to let in more light and deliver better shots, especially in low-light scenarios. With the iPhone 14 Pro duo, Apple is once again rumored to upgrade the camera hardware, and in a big way. Apart from a bigger camera bump and a fresh look up front, not much appears to be changing this time around as far as aesthetics go.
Interestingly, Apple will reportedly retain the iPhone 13’s looks for the vanilla iPhone 14 and its 6.7-inch Max sibling. There are also rumors that Apple will deploy the same A15 Bionic processor used for the iPhone 13 series inside the non-Pro iPhone 14 models. Apple might rebrand the A15 Bionic variant with an eight-core GPU to A16 for the standard iPhone 14, while the ‘real’ A16 will make its debut with the A16 Pro moniker. There is already some precedent that the company can pull off such a stunt. The Apple Watch Series 7 relies on the same processor as the Apple Watch Series 6, but the name of the processor has been changed without any inherent processing power gains. Either way, the real upgrades only appear to be coming to the iPhone 14 Pro models in 2022.
Sources: Ming-Chi Kuo/Twitter, Max Weinbach/Twitter
