Weibo leaker Digital Chat Station suggests that future iPhones may come with multispectral camera sensors. In theory, this could improve color accuracy and improve low-light performance, but we shouldn’t get too excited.
This technology is already used in smartphones, but the results are not particularly impressive and are mainly used in military and industrial cameras…
Digital Chat Station went so far as to say that Apple is interested in the technology.
Apple is also interested in “multispectral,” and its supply chain is being evaluated, and testing has not yet begun.
What is a multispectral camera?
Traditional camera sensors have receptors for red, green, and blue light. By measuring the relative amount of light captured by each receptor, the camera can calculate the color value of each pixel. For example, equal signals from red and blue receptors indicate the color violet. Highly accurate measurements mean millions of color variations can be detected.
All light detected by traditional sensors is in the visible light spectrum. In contrast, multispectral cameras can also detect frequencies beyond the visible light range, i.e., infrared and ultraviolet light.
What are the benefits?
Multispectral cameras are primarily used in military and industrial applications, especially on satellites and drones.
The technology was initially developed to identify military targets, but has since expanded to include weather satellites, crop monitoring, and even the detection of fake paintings. Commercially, it is used for quality control within production lines.
In principle, this technology could also be useful in consumer cameras. It has the potential to improve the accuracy of color identification, especially in low-light conditions. Chinese smartphone brand Huawei has so far integrated the technology into two of its smartphone cameras, citing improved color accuracy and performance in low-light environments.
But critics weren’t too impressed, and so far there’s no sign that the technology will become more prevalent in smartphone cameras.
9to5Mac’s opinion
Digital Chat Station has a decent track record, but it’s not perfect. Apple is interested in so many technologies that never make it into real products. Given the ambiguity of the report and the limited benefits for consumer cameras, we don’t expect this to arrive on iPhones any time soon.
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
