iPhone: Apple plans 'periscope lens' for new handset, rumours say

Technology allows for impressive zooming without taking up large amounts of space

A man checks his phone next to billboards advertising the an Apple iPhone 7 smartphone as he stands on Oxford Street in London on March 7, 2017 (CHRIS J RATCLIFFE/AFP via Getty Images))

Apple is planning to add a "periscope" lens to its future iPhones, according to new rumours.

Such technology allows for large amounts of zoom – up to five times – without the bulky, large optical instruments that are usually required to do so at high quality.

It has already been integrated into phones from companies like Huawei and Samsung, but is yet to be seen in Apple's line-up.

Now the company is set to be looking to introduce the technology into its phones in 2022, according to a new rumour from reliable Apple analyst Ming-chi Kup and reported on sites including 9to5mac.

Periscope lenses do not use the usual large lenses that would be required for such a zoom in a more traditional camera. Instead, they use mirrors and prisms to reflect the light around the device, making use of space within the phone but not adding bulk to the phone.

Demonstrations of such technology have shown how it is able to produce impressive amounts of zoom, without any degradation of quality.

Apple introduced a zoom lens with its iPhone 7 Plus, when it added a two times zoom lens. It has kept that lens around in many phones since.

Other companies have added extra capabilities, with Huawei's 10 times zoom remaining the most dramatic of Apple's competitors. But Apple has not added any further capabilities to any of its handsets.

Instead, it has moved the other way, and its latest phones offer 0.5 times zoom capabilities, which are intended to allow people to zoom out and get detail into pictures that would usually otherwise be cropped out. The latest iPhone 11 Pro includes three lenses – one for zoom and one for extra width – but the cheaper iPhone 11 does not contain any zoom lens at all.