I’ve got this filed under “News” because I’ve never created a “Speculation” category, but we’re getting close enough to street date of the new iPhone that this is probably a pretty credible story.
AppleInsider has posted a story which gives a few clues as to the specs of the camera in the next-generation iPhone. According to a recent report on Taiwan Economic News, two Taiwan suppliers have been tapped to supply the lenses for the 8 MP camera in the upcoming “iPhone 5.”
The reports say that Largan Precision and Genius Electronic Optical are said to be supplying smartphone lenses for the iPhone. The TEN report also says that Omnivision — the current supplier of most of the iPhone 4 camera sensors. All three suppliers currently supply sensors and lenses for iPhone, iPads and iPTs.
If this report is true, the cameras in the new iPhones will probably behave close to the iPhone 4, with similar color specs and light sensitivity, but higher resolution. My concern with the 8 MP sensors from other suppliers used on other phone cameras was that the higher resolution would come at the expense of dynamic range. In fact, that was one of the reasons The Steve opted to go with a 5 MP camera in the iPhone 4 — quality over megapixels. It was the right choice, in my opinion.
I like the Omnivision sensors, though. Size-wise, the sensors in the current iPhone 4 can accommodate up to 14 MP, but at the expense of color and light sensitivity. I hope they’ve used the year to improve the performance of the chips.
Click here for the report on AppleInsider.
Click here for the original, very business-oriented report on Taiwan Economic News.
UPDATE 09.09.11 @09:15: Actually, now I have this filed under LoFi’s new “iPhone 5” category.
=M=
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