Kuo: 24-megapixel upgraded front camera coming with iPhone 17

Although the iPhone 16 is not coming until later this year, the rumor mill doesn’t wait and analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today reports that the front camera specifications are one of the upgrades to expect arriving with the iPhone 17 lineup next year.

In a blog post, Kuo said that manufacturer Genius is the primary lens supplier for the iPhone front camera, and it can expect to see a revenue boost from a higher spec iPhone 17 front camera module. This will reportedly include an upgrade in resolution to 24-megapixels, up from 12-megapixels in the current phone models (and the forthcoming iPhone 16 lineup).

In addition to the boost in resolution, the lens layering will also improve in quality. Kuo says the iPhone 17 specification will demand a six-element lens design, up from the five-element lens in iPhone 15 and 16.

The overall cost of the front camera component will more than double, according to Kuo’s estimates. This has significant upside for supplier Genius’s bottom line.

Corroborating previous rumors, the iPhone 16 will also get an upgraded 48-megapixel ultra-wide camera sensor. This is expected to behave similarly to the 48-megapixel main camera sensor in current iPhone models, where computational photography samples the raw 48 megapixels of information to produce a 12 or 24-megapixel final output image.

Kuo says Genius is also one of the suppliers for the periscope lens in iPhone 16. The 5x 12-megapixel zoom camera will be included on both the Pro and Pro Max iPhone 16 models this year, increasing overall demand for the components.

Genius is also the exclusive supplier of pancake lenses used in the Apple Vision Pro. Suppliers are currently shipping in mass quantities ready for an impending consumer launch, currently expected in February or March. So far, Apple has only promised a launch sometime early in the year.

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