While those of us who would happily trade thinner iPhones for better battery-life may be in the minority, even fans of ultra-thin phones expressed disappointment at the camera bump in the iPhone 6 and 6s. The problem Apple faced is that the laws of physics determine just how thin you can make a sensor and lens arrangement for any given aperture while retaining quality. But a patent application originally filed in 2013, continued last July and granted today could provide a solution.
Instead of the usual flat sensor, the patent describes a ‘spherically curved photosensor’ that would allow the distance between the lens elements and the sensor to be reduced, allowing for a thinner camera module …
The patent describes the conflict you normally get between thin camera modules and image quality.
The advent of small, mobile multipurpose devices such as smartphones and tablet or pad devices has resulted in a need for high-resolution, small form factor cameras for integration in the devices. However, due to limitations of conventional camera technology, conventional small cameras used in such devices tend to capture images at lower resolutions and/or with lower image quality than can be achieved with larger, higher quality cameras.
By making the sensor curved to match the spread of light from the lens array, it can be brought much closer to the rear lens element than would normally be possible. The patent references a similar technique employed in astronomical telescopes.
An image captured in this way would normally suffer from a form of distortion known as chromatic aberration, but Apple proposes an additional lens element to correct this.
As always with Apple patents, there is no way to tell whether or not it will ever be used, but given that the camera lens protruding from the iPhone casing must have caused Jony Ive to have sleepless nights, this – or an alternative solution to the problem – seems more likely than not to make it into a future iPhone.
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So, Apple can change the laws of Physics?
Not change. They’re using them to their advantage.
:D
“in need for higher resolution”? preparing for 36-something megapixels for future 8K video, it’s inevitable though
Or maybe, by the time it’s iPhone 8s (2019), 8K video ready
8k is already starting it’s pace and was showcased at CES by LG and Samsung so it is possible – but since 4K is already too high res for anything under 60 inch, the benefits of 8k in a mobile device would cause it to be too costly and pointless to produce anytime soon and I am not expecting apple to be the ones to use it as a gimmick. Probably see it in the galaxy s8 or s9 though purely for bragging rights of idiots who don’t understand
Wh’t ‘m talking ab’t is having a camera able to capture video in 8K resolution. The iPhone 6s can capture video at 4K resolution though it’s screen can be at maximum 1080p, so, it doesn’t has to be related.
Also, 4K has been here a few years now and still hasn’t had enough adoption- 8k is even further away than that
By the time you reach 2020, five years from the launch of iPhone 6s, 8K would be at a stage where 4k is now.
realgurahamu, 4k is on the 21.7 inch iMac, which makes it retina, and I agree with that decision by Apple, so 4k is actually too low of a res on a 60 or below tv, not to mention above. I sit 12ish feet from my 4k tv, and honestly, I can still see the pixel margins when in a bright room and low picture brightness, so I cannot wait for the 8k displays. Only issue, we need support for the stuff first.
@Alex no what you see are artifacts. Mathematically it shouldn’t be possible for you to see pixels unless you are 20/10 vision or better haha. You can only definitely tell if you have a still, perfect 4K image on the screen, then see pixels.
I don’t know if you understand how ‘retina’ works. The iMac is 4K because you sit much, much closer to a computer monitor than you do a TV. The iMac is something like 18″+ = retina for 20/20 vision. If you have a 60″ TV with 4K resolution, anything beyond 3’11” = retina. If you have a 1080p 60″ TV anything beyond 7’10” = retina for 20/20 vision. Those are assuming perfect normal vision and perfect image quality. If you have a low bit rate stream you will see artifacts and mistake them for poorer resolution I think.
8K of noise? What a wonderful idea. Current smart phone photos look like garbage such is the extreme level of noise, and they’re essentially useless in all but brightly lit outdoor environments. They’re worse than the cheapest point and shoots on the market. No wonder the sales of compact system cameras are doing so well.
Or could it finally be something about DSLR-like photos?
As far as I know Apple uses Sony sensors. Sony also has a patent for a curved sensor which of course works great on a fixed focal length lens such as the one in the iPhone.
The main reason for a curved sensor, afaik, is improved corner performance (sharpness, distortion and vignetting), not reduced size. But yes, a neat side effect for Apple.
I don’t like the bump on my 6, thanks to the leather case I don’t care though. But I would like to see it go.
Question is, will Apple have their own image-sensors? Wh’ts the point of patents than
They can license these things to Sony to put in the sensors made for iPhone. Apple barely makes any of their hardware but they have patents on majority of the stuff that goes into their hardware. This ensure that no one else can use it but Apple and their hardware partners.
Yes, I understand, but I haven’t seen anything like that with their patents. Unless it’s happening with Micro-LED tech to others like Samsung, LG, JDI, Au Optronics but we’ll know only in the future. Plus, since they done it themselves (unlike thunderbolt) they wouldn’t allow an advantage to other competition.
why do you spell what’s as wh’ts?
The iPhone is already too thin and slippery. I don’t want it thinner. Who the hell is asking for thinner? All Apple had to do is make it just a bit thicker, camera bump would be gone and a little larger battery. Most everyone would be happy about that, other then the few crazy’s on a thinness kick. I ended up putting a bulky case on my phone to make it a bunch thicker.
True, but if Apple hadn’t thrived for that than they wouldn’t have pushed for better internals like Flash-storage and all the things that enables patents like this. Everything would be the extension of 20-year stagnant Windows era, possibly till u’r death.
The iphone 6 is just too large. If you didn’t have to constantly loosen and shift your grip to reach things no one would be dropping it. Do people complain about how thin and slippery the ipod touch is? It’s basically a smaller and thinner version of the iphone 6 design.
Exactly, though I haven’t thought of that before but it is true.
The iPhone 6 is the first iPhone I’ve ever dropped, such is the slipperiness of the design, there’s simply nothing to grip, it’s like holding a bar of soap. I totally agree it’s also uncomfortably thin. Apple’s obsession with thinness often gets in the way of human anatomy, which is a rather unfortunate and foolish state of affairs.
I’d happily take an iPhone with an 3 or 4mm of thickness for more battery life.
You do understand the thicker the phone, the less reach your thumb will have across the display right?
I agree it is way to thin. I upgraded to the 6s plus from a 5s on launch day and it drove me crazy how thin it is. I ended up putting an otterbox case on it to make it feel like I actually had something in my hand and to give me something to hold onto while talking on it. The thinness of it actually hurt my hand while holding it. It actually felt like I was gripping a knife edge.
It`s a good point, made frequently. However, the phone we now hold in our hands pushes the envelope into the future. A hyper-thin phone is not the goal: it`s the constant development of tech, the miniturization, screen functionality,battery innovations, etc, which leads to something completely unrecognisable–almost magical, to use a Jobsian adjective–from what we know today. Apple definitely has a vision for what`s possible, and that vision can only be achieved incrementally.
If Apple is so obsessed with thinness why did the 6s and 6 plus get .2 mm thicker? Apple is struggling to get
3D Touch to work on larger screens for the iPads. iPhone thickness has shrank as Apple has figured to make the display tech thinner. Without better screen tech the iPhone thickness won’t be changing much.
I don’t think the iPhone thickness will be to the 6.1mm of the iPod touch and iPad Air 2 soon nor do I see why they should want to go any thinner then that. The .2 mm of thickness difference between the 4.7″ and 5.5″ model is a good thing.
Besides being cosmetically unappealing I have no problem with the camera bump. I’m not typing with it flat on a surface so that wobble does not matter.
Haven’t you read news about OLED displays & Apple? patents regarding Micro-LED, Quantum-Dots Display
Quantum Dot is not good to Apple. They specifically talked about why they invented their own tech in the new iMacs instead of using Quantom Dot, and it had to do with the toxic materials needed for Quantom Dot displays.
In response to his reply, what I meant to say, Apple is not sitting idle, so before sum1 easily blames someone else, they better be aware.
Well, for the time being, you read about OGS (One Glass Solution) displays. JDI in 2015 already made an announcement just like for OLED, I read from MacRumors. Chinese Android OEMs like Yu-Yutopia already used Corning’s CONCORE Glass manufactured through Sharp.
Interesting idea. I worked with at an Observatory where we took photographs on flat glass plates. One of the older guys there said that the first telescope he worked with as a Grad Student took images on curved plates. They had to be mounted in a vacuum cup to form a concave image surface. Said he broke about a hundred plates before he got the hang of it. But the ‘scope took amazing pictures of galaxies.
Anyway /OT
Meh, my biggest complaint about Apple’s cameras lately is the noise or more specifically, the noise reduction algorithm in the ISP. The photos from iPhone 6 and 6S are not better than iPhone 5S when it comes to the noise. They’re better in low light and capturing more for sure but I rather have smaller, bright and noise-free photos than low-light and bright-light photos with noise.
Wow, are we really a minority? People really prefer thin phones (by a fraction of a milimeter) over better battery life (meaning extra hours of usage)?
There’s only one man who prefers thinness over battery life, and his name is Jony Ive.
Buy a battery case, it is a lot thicker and has a lot more battery
The dual-array camera system Apple might use seems more likely to be the way they remove the camera bump. It allows for a much thinner module. My speculation is 2x 6mp image sensors under a new 6-element lens system. The image sensors will sit next to each other under a new oval lens which doesn’t protrude.
Even odds the marketing people would bill it as a 12mp camera. :lol:
‘Our all new combination 12mp camera’
“While those of us who would happily trade thinner iPhones for better battery-life may be in the minority.” Funny that I have never met anyone who didn’t want better battery life from their iPhone. The only people in the minority are the people at Apple who got themselves into this pointless mindset that every phone needs to be thinner than the one before, or thinner than every competitor. Apple has reached the point of diminishing returns and needs to focus on the needs of its customers, not pointless marketing hype about how they made a phone thinner, again, and again, and again …. yawn.