If you have an iPhone 4S, you know that it’s got one of the best cameras ever put into a mobile phone. In fact, for many iPhone users – myself included – the iPhone has taken the place of the traditional point-and-shoot camera for everyday photography needs. It takes excellent photos, HD video, has a ridiculously bright LED flash, and is a lot less bulky than your average camera.
The front-facing camera – the FaceTime camera, as Apple calls it – is a completely different story. If you need it for video chatting – via FaceTime, Skype, ooVoo, or whatever your chat service of choice is – it definitely gets the job done. If you want to check your hair or make sure you got that bit of broccoli out of your teeth, it’s fine. If you want to take actual pictures, it’s… okay. In good light (i.e., sunlight) the pictures are fine. In anything less, they tend to be grainy and generally unimpressive.
The new iPhone, expected to release in October, may change all that. AppleInsider is reporting that while the new iPhone’s rear camera will be getting a minor boost, the FaceTime camera will be getting a major upgrade. Mingchi Kuo, an analyst with KGI, said in a note to investors that he expected the new iPhone to sport an HD FaceTime camera, instead of the VGA camera currently found on the iPHone 4S. He also expects the iSight camera (i.e., the rear camera) to remain at 8 megapixels, but get an increased aperture range.
Kuo also said that he expects the iSight camera on the new iPhone to be thinner, and in fact that the iPhone itself will be significantly thinner than the iPhone 4S. Whereas the iPhone 4S is 9.3 millimeters thick, Kuo expects the new iPhone to be only 7.9 millimeters thick.
