Apple iPhone 16 Pro rumoured to feature almost 1-inch camera but cheaper QLC NAND flash storage

Digital Chat Station claims to be privy to new details about the camera upgrades that will help Apple distinguish the iPhone 16 Pro from the iPhone 15 Pro (curr. $999.99 on Amazon). To recap, Jeff Pu claimed in October 2023 that the iPhone 16 Pro would adopt the 5x tetraprism telephoto camera from the iPhone 15 Pro Max, albeit at the expense of a 0.2-inch diagonally longer housing than the iPhone 15 Pro.

Additionally, the iPhone 16 Pro is rumoured to feature a 48 MP ultra-wide-angle camera, a notable upgrade over the the 12 MP sensor that graces the iPhone 13 Pro onwards. According to Digital Chat Station, the latter will have a 1/2.6-inch optical format, up from 1/3.6-inches in the current 12 MP ultra-wide-angle sensor. The leaker adds that these new sensors will also be joined by an updated 48 MP primary sensor, whose optical format grows from 1/1.28 to 1/1.14-inches.

In other words, the iPhone 16 Pro will close in on the vaunted 1-inch optical format. By contrast, Apple will leave a front-facing camera upgrade for the iPhone 17 Pro, although plastic camera lenses could make way for moulded glass camera equivalents starting with the iPhone 16 Pro. Meanwhile, DigiTimes asserts that Apple is considering equipping 1 TB variants with QLC NAND flash instead of TLC NAND to reduce production costs. Unfortunately, this could negatively impact performance and durability, but it remains to be seen whether this could reach other storage variants, too.