iPhone 15's camera lens upgrade will leave Samsung in the dust

Back of the iPhone 14 Pro in Space Black

(Image credit: Joe Wituschek)

The iPhone 15 could be in for a huge lens upgrade that would make it the first globally available smartphone to use a hybrid lens design.

According to a new report from Twitter user, RGcloudS, the iPhone 15 will receive a glass-plastic hybrid lens with an ƒ/1.7 aperture featuring a single glass element and six plastic elements. This would be a significant change to the fully plastic lens on this year's iPhone 14.

Hybrid lens technology is currently used in some Xiaomi devices solely available in the Chinese market, which would make these new hybrid lenses a big step forward for the global smartphone industry. This allows for the same IMX sensor but the lens change captures 15%-20% more light and better colors.

As RGcloudS puts it, the new hybrid lens will "leave Samsung as the most outdated camera lens no branded, all plastics"

1/5The upcoming iP15 series will be the first global phone with hybrid lens. beside chinese brands1G6P • F1.7 aperture, means the same IMX sensor but captures 15-20% more light and better colors leaving samsung as the most outdated camera lensno branded, all plasticsJuly 18, 2023

The iPhone 15 is coming with huge camera upgrades

This hybrid lens upgrade won't be the only big improvement we see in the iPhone 15 come September.

Top Apple expert, Ming-Chi Kuo, says the iPhone 15 will receive a 48-megapixel camera similar to the iPhone 14 Pro. This means the regular iPhone 15 cameras look like they'll receive a substantial upgrade this year after previous iterative upgrades.

The iPhone 15 is also rumored to receive the Dynamic Island from the iPhone 14 Pro alongside thinner bezels in a new enclosure.

The iPhone 15 and 15 Pro reveals are just around the corner with a likely keynote in September. These new iPhones will ship with iOS 17 which introduces Contact Posters, StandBy, and a whole host of new features to your iPhone.

With these new reports of big camera updates coming, we're excited to see what software improvements will arrive with the new iPhones on iOS 17 and whether or not the new iPhone 15 models will be the upgrades we've all been waiting for.

John-Anthony Disotto is the How To Editor of iMore, ensuring you can get the most from your Apple products and helping fix things when your technology isn’t behaving itself. Living in Scotland, where he worked for Apple as a technician focused on iOS and iPhone repairs at the Genius Bar, John-Anthony has used the Apple ecosystem for over a decade and prides himself in his ability to complete his Apple Watch activity rings. John-Anthony has previously worked in editorial for collectable TCG websites and graduated from The University of Strathclyde where he won the Scottish Student Journalism Award for Website of the Year as Editor-in-Chief of his university paper. He is also an avid film geek, having previously written film reviews and received the Edinburgh International Film Festival Student Critics award in 2019. John-Anthony also loves to tinker with other non-Apple technology and enjoys playing around with game emulation and Linux on his Steam Deck.

In his spare time, John-Anthony can be found watching any sport under the sun from football to darts, taking the term “Lego house” far too literally as he runs out of space to display any more plastic bricks, or chilling on the couch with his French Bulldog, Kermit.