If you’ve been following the endless leaks and rumors around the upcoming iPhone 13 series of phones, you have surely seen the image above: four new iPhones in total, and two of them with a camera that suddenly comes in a different, diagonal orientation.
What’s up with that?
First of all, the two iPhones in question, the supposed iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Mini replace the same-sized current models that also have a dual camera system, just oriented in a straight line rather than a diagonal.
And this could just be a vanity move by Apple, a little tweak to make the iPhone 13 series stand out in the crowd, so there might just not be much to read into that.
But if we were to bet money, we would say that there is actually a reason behind that different adjustment and there are a couple of possible explanations here. First, the reason for this new diagonal camera might be in a brand new technology used for those cameras: sensor shift stabilization. Unlike traditional OIS where magnetic actuators moved the lens to compensate for hand jitter, this new system adjusts the camera sensor instead, which theoretically results in even better stabilization. A possible side effect? A slightly bigger camera module and hence the need for readjustment.
Don’t forget that you don’t have much space to put a camera in a small-format device like a phone. Just look at these images from Creative Electron, they show just how tightly packed the iPhone 12 was on the inside.
iPhone 12 on the left and 12 Pro on the right, image by Creative Electron
Another very plausible explanation for the change in camera orientation is just the rumored bigger battery size. A bigger battery that extends further north in the device will simply leave no space for two cameras sitting in a vertical orientation. That would have forced Apple to adopt this quite curious diagonal setup, but if it buys is a bigger battery and a longer-lasting device, we’re all in for that.
At the end of the day, the reason behind why Apple is likely to use a diagonal camera in the new iPhones remains a bit of a mystery. Interestingly, it used a totally different arrangement for the iPhone 12 series: the iPhone 12, 12 Mini and 12 Pro Max had their main camera on the bottom, but the iPhone 12 Pro had its main camera at the top. Will Apple address those inconsistencies?
