iPhone 16 Pro rumored to get faster 5G, Wi-Fi 7, camera improvements
An analyst is is not going too far out on a limb with claims that the iPhone 16 Pro in 2024 will feature "5G Advanced," get Wi-Fi 7, and a better Ultrawide camera lens.
iPhone 16 Pro will have a faster "5G Advanced" modem
Pu's notes to investors are reportedly based on information from the supply chain, but this time they read more like speculation. Alongside the faster 5G, Pu says the iPhone 16 Pro may have Wi-Fi 7, and camera improvements.
All of his predictions, including more about chassis size changes, have been claimed before.
The only claim where Pu is specific is to do with the "5G Advanced" one. As well as saying that Apple will use the Qualcomm Snapdragon X75 modem in the iPhone 16 Pro, he says the company will not use it in the regular iPhone 16.
As well as the faster speeds, this X75 model has a combined mmWave and sub-6GHz transceiver, which makes for a smaller component that also uses less power.
Apple is continuing to use Qualcomm modems while its own in-house ones are being developed. However, it has traditionally used one variety of Qualcomm modem across each year's whole iPhone range.
If it hasn't proved economically necessary to have two different modems in the range before, it seems unlikely that it will now. Although it would make for a clear difference between the regular and Pro models, which Apple is said to want.
Jeff Pu regularly reports on Apple's plans, but his track record is poor, and there is nothing revelatory surrounding Thursday's report. Along with many others, he erroneously expected a price increase for the iPhone 15 Pro Max, for instance.
Plus he cautioned that the iPhone 15 Pro Max would also be delayed a month until October 2023, which obviously didn't happen.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
I think the new 5X lens in the Pro Max is a great example of "advancement" to keep up with competition that was a real step backward for actual photography because it replaced the far more useful... and used... 3X lens. This is a bad tradeoff. The tricky bit of marketing is that Apple refers to these as "zoom" lenses--and I thought the new lens in the Pro Max was an optical zoom that would handle the 3X to 5x range. But it's not a zoom lens in the optical sense. The 5X is a single, fixed focal length lens that's a 120mm lens equivalent. The problem is that Pro Max only shifts to the 5X lens at 120mm and above. That leaves the single focal length 24mm main camera to cover a huge range from 1X to 4.9X. And since it's not an optical zoom lens, it does this by sensor crops and computational photography tricks that all amount to flavors of digital zoom. More than 90% of all photos are shot in the 24-85mm range and the Pro Max has one fixed focal length lens at 24mm to cover all of that. The 15 Pro and all previous Pro models shifted to the 3X lens at 77mm, so the main lens isn't pushed nearly as hard in the range it must cover with digital zoom.
But listen: if you're heavily into wildlife and sports photography, the 5X lens will be great in offering a true optical 120mm lens so that you're not pushing a 3X lens so hard to cover telephoto distances with digital zoom. However, for everyone else, losing a 3X lens for the 5X lens means you'll be using a lot more digital zoom in a lot more of your photos, plus losing the gorgeous 3X portrait mode for 5X, which requires much greater distance from your subject. For most photographers, the Pro Max offers a different camera system, not a better one.
Also, add USB3 protocol data to MagSafe. Use, a Smart Connector with 9 pins, use a light interface, whatever, but keep making MagSafe accessories more and more functional.