One of the biggest early rumors surrounding next year's iPhone 15 Pro is the possibility of many new camera upgrades. These include a new periscope telephoto camera and a new "8P" or eight element lens for the main camera. Now, industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has tweeted that the iPhone 15 Pro may not get this lens element upgrade (opens in new tab).

Just last week, TrendForce, another industry analyst (opens in new tab), reported that the iPhone 15 series will finally move to USB-C ports and that the Pro model will have increased RAM, from 6GB to 8GB next year TrendForce also, mentioned the use of a new type of main camera lens that Apple may adopt an upgraded 8-element (8P) camera.

More elements in the lens could allow more light to be absorbed by the lens and reduce image distortion, which may be essential for wide-angle lenses. However, it may also be more complex, and increasing the number of lens elements comes with both advantages and disadvantages.

Given that Apple just moved to a 7P element lens for the iPhone 14 Pro, it may not move to this immediately upgraded lens. However, Ming-Chi Kuo did not give a reason for this in his tweet, only stating that it will not happen.

To widen the gap between the Pro and iPhone base models, it appears that Apple may have reserved some top upgrades for the Pro devices and even the new iPhone 15 Ultra model. This includes a new periscope telephoto lens, which relies on a prism that reflects light to different internal lenses at 90-degree angles to the camera sensor. This would allow for longer lenses and advanced optical zoom.

Some rumors suggest that the periscope camera may be an iPhone 15 Pro Max-only feature to upsell the iPhone 15 Pro Max. However, other rumors suggest that the iPhone 14 Pro Max could be replaced by the iPhone 15 Ultra next year, so we will have to wait and see what happens.

Twitter's Shadow_leak (opens in new tab) also recently stated that the periscope camera could have a hybrid lens design instead of using pure plastic components to achieve the supposed 5x or 6x magnification. Some of the lens elements would have a glass core with a plastic coating, moving away from the industry standard of plastic only.

The iPhone 15 Pros could have a more powerful and efficient 3nm chipset, besides competing for a position on our best camera phone list. However, it will be some time before we see the iPhone 15 series in action. Until then, check out our iPhone 14 Plus and iPhone 14 Pro Max comparison to see which larger-screen iPhone is right for you.