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WSJ: High-end ‘iPhone 11’ will feature triple rear camera, XR successor gets dual lenses

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple’s flagship 2019 lineup will feature three models, including 2 OLED and 1 LCD variant. The high-end ‘iPhone 11’ (iPhone 11 Max?) will feature a triple rear camera system. The successor to the iPhone XR, with LCD screen panel, will be upgraded from a single rear lens to a dual-camera system.

The triple camera system is visualised in this render from last weekend, which is meant to be based on iPhone 11 prototypes. The Journal’s story today corroborates that previous leak.

The Wall Street Journal says that new camera features will be a significant part of the 2019 flagship iPhones. We are colloquially referring to it as the ‘iPhone 11’ for simplicity, but final marketing names is not being reported on and won’t be known until much closer to September.

However, on the surface, it seems like the 5.8-inch iPhone 11 will not be receiving compelling camera changes as it will be sticking to the dual-camera system. The three-camera module appears to be reserved for the largest, most expensive, phone.

This would be a change away from the iPhone XS situation where 5.8-inch and 6.5-inch sizes are practically identical apart from screen size.

The report says that Apple may drop the LCD option in 2020, moving to an OLED only lineup late next year. It also alludes to the removal of the pressure sensitive component that enables 3D Touch, in order to reduce components costs. It doesn’t say that 3D Touch is certainly going away necessarily as the feature may be achieved through other hardware changes.

The publication claims that product planning for the 2019 model has reached a point ‘where major features cannot be changed easily, it isn’t completed’ but the roadmap for the 2020 iPhone (12?) is much more in flux at this stage.

Last weekend, this render began circulating that is meant to represent the in-development iPhone 11 at the EVT prototype stage. It features a dramatically large camera bump to house three cameras, a flash and a microphone. The positioning of these features inside the round-rect bump is asymmetric, a quality not typically found in Apple hardware design.

The device would have to progress through design validation test and production validation test revisions before being truly locked and finalized.


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