Alleged fifth-gen iPhone part suggests camera lens, flash will be further apart

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
Lending more evidence to suggest the camera and LED flash will be spaced further apart on Apple's fifth-generation iPhone, a new claimed "iPhone 5" component shows a camera part without an accompanying flash.



The purported rear camera part was revealed on Saturday by Apple.pro (via Google Translate). The site obtained pictures that claim to show both the forward- and rear-facing cameras on Apple's fifth-generation iPhone.



The alleged iPhone rear camera does not have an accompanying LED flash to its right, as the part does on the current iPhone 4. That would lend support to an alleged fifth-generation iPhone case that surfaced earlier Saturday, showing a camera flash on the far right of the rear of the new iPhone.



That case from an overseas third-party accessory maker also included a mockup that showed a larger edge-to-edge display. Various rumors have suggested that the next iPhone will sport a larger screen, though the footprint of the device will stay the same.



The picture sent to Apple.pro was allegedly sent by a tipster from California named "Steven." Referencing keynotes given by Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs, the source reportedly suggested they would soon have "one more thing" to share on the next iPhone.







The same site has been the source of numerous Apple-related hardware leaks in the past, including the tiny touchscreen that last year became the centerpiece of the new iPod nano. Earlier this week, the site showed photos that suggest Apple could add a camera to its seventh-generation multi-touch iPod nano.



As for iPhone-related rumors, in February the site claimed that Apple was evaluating three new smartphone prototypes for potential release in the future. One of those models was said to include a physical slide-out keyboard, though it was not known whether the company actually intended to bring such a product to market.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 46
    roos24roos24 Posts: 170member
    Fine with me. I am so happy with my 4G, that I can wait until the 6G appears...
  • Reply 2 of 46
    dluxdlux Posts: 666member
    Two details come to mind:



    1) The white iPhone supposedly had problems with light leaks. Perhaps by physically separating the flash unit it cannot spill sideways into the lens (possibly by glowing into the white plastic which then might affect the lens).



    2) Another possibility is that Apple might be specifying a xenon flash bulb, which might be a separate component from the lens supplier.
  • Reply 3 of 46
    ituomasituomas Posts: 35member
    Moving the flash further apart from the lens will help prevent red eyes. As far as I'm concerned, the iPhone 4 produces horrible red eyes with its flash, although they're not really red but zombie-yellowish.
  • Reply 4 of 46
    okboyokboy Posts: 10member
    Another possibility is that this is actually for the rumoured budget iPhone version.



    Or maybe Apple really hates flash. Har har.
  • Reply 5 of 46
    suddenly newtonsuddenly newton Posts: 13,819member
    For the next rumor, the iPhone 5 will have a hot shoe, and the flash will be external.
  • Reply 6 of 46
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    I’d think the ribbons would be getting smaller, not larger for future iPhones. Does this mean we should consider a larger iPhone (I.e.: larger display with more room for components) or a cheaper iPhone where they don’t invest as much into smaller component?
  • Reply 7 of 46
    elliots11elliots11 Posts: 290member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dlux View Post


    Two details come to mind:



    1) The white iPhone supposedly had problems with light leaks. Perhaps by physically separating the flash unit it cannot spill sideways into the lens (possibly by glowing into the white plastic which then might affect the lens).



    2) Another possibility is that Apple might be specifying a xenon flash bulb, which might be a separate component from the lens supplier.



    I doubt it'll be anything other than LED. Whoever they have designing the iPhones camera is impressive. By moving the LED as far away as possible, but still in a reasonable position, the photos will look better and have more depth. It's why pro photogs use off camera flashes even if they have a pop up flash available. As long as people can adapt to not putting their fingers in the two areas (feels like I'm wetting up a joke) of the lens and flash, then flash photography on the iPhone will look a lot better.
  • Reply 8 of 46
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by elliots11 View Post


    I doubt it'll be anything other than LED. Whoever they have designing the iPhones camera is impressive. By moving the LED as far away as possible, but still in a reasonable position, the photos will look better and have more depth. It's why pro photogs use off camera flashes even if they have a pop up flash available. As long as people can adapt to not putting their fingers in the two areas (feels like I'm wetting up a joke) of the lens and flash, then flash photography on the iPhone will look a lot better.



    That got me to think of some stupid ideas.



    What about Apple leveraging their ecosystem so that two iPhones can take a picture at the same time to create a 3D snapshot? They determine their distance from each other, sync clocks and take a photo at the same time, then each process half the image and send the result to the other via BT so each has a 3D image. No need for special HW, just leveraging their ecosystem and control of the HW and SW stack. I wonder if that?s possible for a 3rd-party developer?
  • Reply 9 of 46
    mrnakomrnako Posts: 3member
    "side-to-side screen" ah you mean like on the first generation iPhone?
  • Reply 10 of 46
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by elliots11 View Post


    I doubt it'll be anything other than LED. Whoever they have designing the iPhones camera is impressive. By moving the LED as far away as possible, but still in a reasonable position, the photos will look better and have more depth. It's why pro photogs use off camera flashes even if they have a pop up flash available. As long as people can adapt to not putting their fingers in the two areas (feels like I'm wetting up a joke) of the lens and flash, then flash photography on the iPhone will look a lot better.



    I understand what you're saying, and I imagine there might be some slight advantage in the manner you describe, but realistically we're talking about offsetting the flash a couple of inches. The advantageous affects of off camera flash typically involves at least a couple of feet if not yards.



    That is, the angle of offset between the incidence of illumination from the flash and the lens will be some tiny fraction of a degree-- probably not enough to make a huge difference. I'm guessing the earlier theory is right-- that it makes the white iPhone easier to engineer.
  • Reply 11 of 46
    ameldrum1ameldrum1 Posts: 255member
    I've always kind of wondered why cellphone often have the flash located right next to the camera lens, i guess it made sense if they were a single component... pics should definitely be better the further away the flash is.



    coolio.
  • Reply 12 of 46
    moustachemoustache Posts: 95member
    There is this image also leaked.







    It must be in Retina Display since the icons are so much smaller in proportion to the existing icon size and layout. Maybe it is a mockup? Not sure as it looks legit? \
  • Reply 13 of 46
    greeng4greeng4 Posts: 33member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    That got me to think of some stupid ideas.



    What about Apple leveraging their ecosystem so that two iPhones can take a picture at the same time to create a 3D snapshot? They determine their distance from each other, sync clocks and take a photo at the same time, then each process half the image and send the result to the other via BT so each has a 3D image. No need for special HW, just leveraging their ecosystem and control of the HW and SW stack. I wonder if that?s possible for a 3rd-party developer?



    THAT would be sweet. I would think it would need to be able to judge distance between the phones with better accuracy than just regular GPS though.
  • Reply 14 of 46
    Why is the article ended mid-sentence? "Evaluating three new....." What?
  • Reply 15 of 46
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Splash-reverse View Post


    Why is the article ended mid-sentence? "Evaluating three new....." What?



    "ways of silencing rumor sites."
  • Reply 16 of 46
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Splash-reverse View Post


    Why is the article ended mid-sentence? "Evaluating three new....." What?



    I don?t know why they occasionally do that on their forum articles. They also don?t seem to update them if they?ve updated the main page, and never include any images or videos on the forum.



    Here is the direct link: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...her_apart.html
  • Reply 17 of 46
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by iTuomas View Post


    Moving the flash further apart from the lens will help prevent red eyes. As far as I'm concerned, the iPhone 4 produces horrible red eyes with its flash, although they're not really red but zombie-yellowish.



    I never found the iPhone 4 flash to be that useful, to be honest. And yeah "red"/yellow eyes are a problem.



    What I like most is the 720p video recording and pretty decent still shots. Video and stills without the flash turn out alright in good and poor lighting conditions. Although the annoying thing with still shots is that the camera sometimes has too slow a shutter speed causing blurriness... I've trained myself to shoot at least 5 shots of something in whatever lighting conditions and then later find a clear shot in iPhoto.



    And it bears repeating:



    The other thing to note is that the flash needs to be moved away from the lens because this was causing trouble with a lot of CASES... The light was bouncing off the cases back into the lens. That's why over the past year case manufacturers have had to adjust the opening for the lens and flash to avoid this problem... Some even advertise this advantage.



    I had the issue with my InCase Snap so I couldn't really use the flash in the case but more recently my CaseMate doesn't have this problem.



    So this makes sense for Apple to do for the purposes of the white iPhone and what must be quite a lot of complaints from users with cases that muddle up the flash light.



    In any case this whole "new iPhone" stuff is currently moot for me because of my malfunctioning annoying Home button that apparently will take a month to "fix" by my useless greedy local telco that does not want to provide enough replacement units for customer needs.
  • Reply 18 of 46
    zeromeuszeromeus Posts: 182member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by moustache View Post


    There is this image also leaked.







    It must be in Retina Display since the icons are so much smaller in proportion to the existing icon size and layout. Maybe it is a mockup? Not sure as it looks legit? \



    The mock up is using the iPad's icon layout. That's why the icons are farther apart AND have 5 rows of icons instead of 4.
  • Reply 19 of 46
    chris.comchris.com Posts: 26member
    Dear Appleinsider:



    Please read this article on the difference between "further" and "farther."



    http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com...s-farther.aspx



    Love,

    Chris.com
  • Reply 20 of 46
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    That got me to think of some stupid ideas.



    What about Apple leveraging their ecosystem so that two iPhones can take a picture at the same time to create a 3D snapshot? They determine their distance from each other, sync clocks and take a photo at the same time, then each process half the image and send the result to the other via BT so each has a 3D image. No need for special HW, just leveraging their ecosystem and control of the HW and SW stack. I wonder if that’s possible for a 3rd-party developer?



    That would be really cool...



    Another use is maybe 10 to 50 iPhones for Bullet Time:

    http://gizmodo.com/?_escaped_fragmen...rds-red-carpet



    You know what, forget 3D, making our own Bullet Time stuff is more fun, I reckon.







    In 10 years all smartphones will be advanced enough, that you could actually "crowdsource" say 50 to 100 people taking multiple pictures at a venue, say a concert or famous location, and software on any one of those smartphones could ingest all that data and interpolate it so you have a full 3D reconstruction (using photogrammetry, etc.) of the entire site and you can fly through it (like a virtual SpiderCam*) on the screen, pick out people in the crowd, etc.



    Here's some of the "3D" apps for iPhone:

    http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives...the_iphone.php

    http://gizmodo.com/5794582/trimensional-for-iphone



    *Man I love SpiderCam (http://www.spidercam.net) in HD for my favourite tennis and football (soccer) live broadcasts.

    Problem is, the broadcast directors don't use the SpiderCam shots and replays enough!
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