iPhone 16 Pro/16 Ultra may be equipped with periscopic telephoto

Today, MacRumors broke the news that the iPhone 15 Ultra will be the only model in the iPhone 15 lineup to come with a periscopic telephoto. Apple did this partly because the iPhone 14 Pro Max market sales were stronger than expected, so Apple will let the Ultra version have some of the features exclusively.

Notably, the periscopic telephoto will be "devolved" to the Pro version on the iPhone 16 series, meaning that both the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Ultra will have a periscopic telephoto lens.

With the periscopic telephoto lens, the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Ultra can easily achieve 6x optical zoom, while the current iPhone 14 Pro only supports 3x optical zoom.

The periscopic telephoto lens is said to rely on a prism that reflects light at a 90-degree angle onto the built-in lens. This makes the lens much longer than a telephoto lens, resulting in a better optical zoom effect.

A number of current Android flagships are equipped with a periscopic telephoto lens, such as the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, which can achieve 10x optical zoom and up to 100x digital zoom thanks to the periscopic telephoto lens.

Now Apple will also be equipped with a periscopic telephoto on its own models, which will bring a better optical zoom effect, known as the Apple version of the "telescope".