With the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus having not been around all that long, you might be surprised to learn that plans are already afoot to replace them in the lineup. But you probably shouldn’t be, Apple gets the ball rolling well ahead of the expected September release date and that means that we tend to start seeing more and more leaks the closer we get to September. The latest leak comes via a post on the X social network that appears to show an iPhone 16 dummy unit in all its pink glory, including the expected camera redesign.
The dummy unit was shared to the X social network by Jon Rettinger and it definitely appears to be the real deal. The unit has the same pill-shaped camera layout change that previous rumors have told us to expect as well as the color-infused back glass that looks so good on the current iPhone 15 models.
The most obvious change that we see in the photo shared by Rettinger is that new camera system, with Apple ditching the familiar diagonal layout in favor of a more vertical one. It’s similar to the iPhone X and iPhone XS layout, but the change is about more than nostalgia.
It’s believed that Apple is changing the layout of the cameras to allow the new models to capture spatial video that can then be viewed on the Apple Vision Pro. Currently, only the spatial computer itself as well as the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max can capture such videos, and it appears Apple wants to expand that to the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus.
The move of cameras is required in order to allow the stereoscopic capture via two parallel cameras. The result is a video that is essentially 3D when viewed via the Apple Vision Pro’s 4K lenses but remains 2D when viewed using the iPhone that it was shot on. People who have tried the videos have marveled at the quality they offer and the experience they provide, and it makes sense that Apple would want to bring that to more people.
The real issue here however isn’t the cameras on the iPhones, but the Apple Vision Pro itself. At $3,499 it’s a difficult buy for most people, so it remains to be seen just how many people actually capture video in the spatial video format anyway.
As for the new iPhones, we expect that Apple will announce those during an event in September.