Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said last year that we can expect significant improvements in ultra-wide lenses on the iPhone 13, and a new supply chain report reflects this.
One aspect of the report directly corroborates one of Kuo’s predictions: that the ultra-wide lens will have auto focus this year …
It may seem strange that it is not yet the case, but, as we explained last time, it is not as important as you can imagine.
He expects the ultra-wide-angle lens to autofocus for the first time. The current ultra-wide-angle lens is fixed-focus. This may seem surprising, but it is generally not a big problem with very wide-angle lenses, as they are used mainly for landscapes and urban landscapes, where everything in the shoot is far enough to be in focus. However, switching to autofocus will be useful for close-up wide-angle shots.
But Digitimes goes further and says that we can also expect the ultra-wide lens to get sensor displacement OIS. It was already rumored that the sensor change OIS was coming to all models this year.
Background
Apple has long been offering optical image stabilization (OIS) in its cameras. This is a system of sensors and motors designed to detect camera shake, or other movement, and to cancel it by moving the lens in the same amount and at the same speed in the opposite direction.
With the iPhone 12 Pro Max’s wide-angle lens (standard), Apple goes even further and uses sensor-shift OIS. With this, the camera moves the sensor instead of the lens. Since the sensor is smaller and lighter, it responds better than lens-based OIS and therefore produces sharp images most of the time.
On the iPhone 12, Apple has OIS on the wide-angle and telephoto lenses, but not on the ultra-wide lenses.
Today’s report on improvements in ultra-wide lenses
Digitimes loads the report.
Japanese VCM (voice coil engine) suppliers, mainly Alps Alpine and Mizumi, have asked their Taiwanese third-party manufacturers, including Audix, to expand production capacity by about 40% by the end of June or early July 2021, according to industry sources.
Alps Alpine and Mizumi are the two main suppliers of VCMs used on the iPhone 12 Pro Max, the sources said. Apple is said to be upgrading the rear camera’s ultra-wide-angle lenses to new iPhone models to be launched in the second half of 2021, adopting OIS sensor-shift (optical image stabilization) and auto focus (AF), the sources noted.
This will be particularly beneficial when taking ultra-wide pictures in low light, such as night views of the city or the night sky.
We have received some other reports on the changes we can expect in this year’s iPhone lineup. Kuo said yesterday that the iPhone 13 will have a smaller notch, 120 Hz screen and larger batteries. Wedbush suggests that storage can be a maximum of 1 TB. Other reports pointed to a “refined matte background” and several reports pointed to the possibility of an always-on screen.
Render: LetsGoDigital
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