Iphone 16 Pro Upgrades

With the next iPhone 16 series, Apple will put an end to its hardware and software fragmentation binge that has been going on for the past few years in order to entice customers to buy its more costly smartphones.

Not only will all iPhone 16 models include an Apple A18 CPU and at least 8GB of RAM, allowing them to run the new Apple Intelligence algorithms, but the Pro versions will do one better by not differing as significantly in terms of hardware as the iPhone 15 Pro models.

According to Taiwanese tabloid Digitimes and its sources in Apple’s local camera supply chain, new component brands will enter the market this year. Aside from Largan Precision, which supplies optics for Apple’s vaunted Tetraprism periscope lens, Genius Electronic Optical (GSEO) is now also taking a piece of the pie.

The supply diversification appears to result from the Tetraprism lens no longer being unique to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, as it was last year. As previously reported by several independent and trustworthy sources, Apple intends to equip the smaller iPhone 16 Pro with a periscope zoom lens for the first time, decreasing iPhone fragmentation and providing buyers with a true choice between a smaller and larger Pro phone.

Smaller will mean something different this year, as the iPhone 16 Pro display is projected to rise in size to 6.3 inches, distinguishing it from the standard iPhone 16 model, with which it has shared a screen diagonal for quite some time.

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A larger iPhone 16 Pro will provide more area for the Tetraprism periscope zoom and close the performance gap with the 16 Pro Max, but that may not be the only reason Apple is doing this.

Users have been flocking to the Max version since Apple began fragmenting the iPhone franchise and leaving lesser iPhones significantly under-specified in order to sell more expensive ones. So much so that it has been the primary sales driver, and Apple may seek to change things up and spread demand across a wider range of its most costly iPhones.

Given that the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus are expected to still sport puny 60Hz displays, while the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max will come with Tetraprism zoom lens, Apple might just succeed in its sales tactics again.