Apple iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max.
Sure, the iPhone 15 isn’t on sale yet (check the countdown here, it’s on sale from Friday, September 22) but rumors are already building about next year’s phones. Crazy, right? Except the latest report comes from Ming-Chi Kuo from TFI Securities who is consistently, remarkably reliable.
One of the biggest stories about the iPhone 15 Pro Max is its ground-breaking telephoto camera. Where rival manufacturers have created periscope lenses which reflect the light along the inside of the phone’s body to create the extra focal length needed for bigger telephotos, Apple has gone for something unique.
The tetraprism in the Pro Max reflects light four times but it does it in such a way that it doesn’t look any different from the outside—unlike the long, rectangular mirror visible on periscope cameras. The result is a 5x optical zoom.
Kuo says in a new post for Medium, “Both iPhone 16 Pro Max and the iPhone 16 Pro are expected to feature tetraprism telephoto cameras. If Apple maintains the higher specification for the lens, it will raise the entry barrier for Genius, Apple’s second-largest lens supplier, next year.”
This is great news. The tetraprism’s absence from the regular iPhone 15 Pro was a cause of dismay for some and it seems, again according to Kuo, to have pushed more customers to the bigger iPhone so as not to miss out on the cool new feature.
But, back in the present, there’s been a serious problem in supplying that tetraprism to meet iPhone 15 Pro Max demand.
Kuo says there’s been a supply blockage for the iPhone 15 Pro Max precisely because the tetraprism is proving difficult to manufacture. That’s a worry in the run-up to release and has seen shipping dates slip into November just hours after pre-orders began. But, take heart, Kuo says that Apple is on the case and aiming to clear the bottleneck pronto. Kuo explains, “The most significant supply bottleneck for the iPhone 15 Pro Max is currently the tetraprism compact camera module (CCM), which is exclusively supplied by LGIT. To improve the CCM production yield, Apple has urgently increased the specifications of the tetraprism lens exclusively supplied by Largan to address the CCM yield issues caused by assembly tolerances.”
Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max camera system.
As a result, Largan has “urgently expanded the production lines for the tetraprism lens”.
This will cost Apple more, though it’s not expected that the company will pass on this price increase. Kuo goes on, “Apple’s willingness to increase the lens cost to improve the production yield of the CCM is not only due to the relatively lower cost of defective lenses but also to Largan’s world-class production capabilities to meet Apple’s urgent requirements.”
For now, if you want the iPhone 15 Pro Max, ordering as soon as possible is the best advice and, if the bottleneck clears quickly, customers could see the shipping date come forward again.