The iPhone 17 May Get an Even Better Front Camera
Credit: 4RMDToggle Dark Mode
Even though the iPhone 16 has yet to debut, we’ve been hearing a wealth of rumors about what to expect from next year’s iPhone 17 lineup. Now, a new report suggests that Apple may increase the resolution of the front TrueDepth camera for the first time in years.
While the iPhone X added a new TrueDepth camera to support Face ID and other cool features like Animoji, it didn’t increase the resolution of the image sensor, which shared the same 7-megapixel (MP) quality as the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus that were released at the same time, all of which followed in the footsteps of the prior year’s iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
The front camera sensor remained at 7MP in the 2018 iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR, finally getting a bump to 12MP with the iPhone 11 lineup, where it’s remained ever since.
While one can argue that 12MP is more than adequate for a selfie camera, it’s had the longest run without a sensor increase in recent years. In 2012, the iPhone 5 bumped the front camera to 1.2MP from the paltry 0.3MP of early iPhone models, and then the iPhone 6s took that to 5MP in 2015 — a short-lived step on the way to the 7MP iPhone 7, which also introduced 1080p HD video recording from the front camera for the first time.
That’s not to say that the 12MP front shooter hasn’t had some year-over-year improvements, but they’ve been incremental at best and mostly related to better image signal processors than hardware sensor upgrades. For example, the iPhone 12 brought Deep Fusion support, and the iPhone 14 introduced the Photonic Engine, both of which were computational photography improvements driven by Apple’s latest A-series silicon inside those models.
It wasn’t until the iPhone 14 lineup that Apple even increased the aperture of the front camera, moving from the f/2.2 that had been used since the iPhone 6 to a wider f/1.9 that could capture better images in low-light conditions.
The front camera also remains the one thing that Apple’s standard and pro models have in common when it comes to photography; the Pro models have never had a better TrueDepth camera system than their standard counterparts — even when the iPhone 14 Pro adopted the Dynamic Island the differences between it and the iPhone 14 were purely cosmetic — so the only additional selfie benefits for pro users came from other unique features that most folks wouldn’t likely care about anyway, like ProRes video recording.
Boosting TrueDepth to 24MP
Analyst Jeff Pu of Haitong Securities recently shared a research note to investors predicting that all models in the iPhone 17 lineup will see an increase to a 24MP sensor for the front true-depth camera, which will also use a more advanced six-element plastic lens.
That’s not only double the resolution of the iPhone 15 front camera but also provides an extra lens element that will significantly improve the image quality.
It’s unclear whether this means the iPhone 17 would actually produce 24MP photos. It’s possible Apple may stick with a pixel-binning strategy to use the extra resolution to feed more data into its computational engine to improve overall photo quality while still saving the resulting images in a 12MP format. However, if recent developments in the iPhone 15 lineup are any indication, it’s likely users will at least have the option of capturing in a full 24MP resolution.
Pu’s information corroborates a more speculative report shared by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo earlier this year, and it seems pretty plausible considering Apple’s move to increase its rear camera sensors over the past two years. Plus, since Apple has always used the same front camera quality on its standard and pro models — even the iPhone X and iPhone 8 had the same sensor — it also makes sense that all iPhone 17 models would get the 24MP sensor.
However, it’s a bit more interesting in light of reports that Apple is planning to include a new ultra-thin “iPhone 17 Slim” in the lineup. While some reports have suggested that this model could have only a single camera on the rear, it looks like Apple won’t be shortchanging its luxury model when it comes to capturing high-quality selfies.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
