iPhone 12: Better camera, faster unlock, and longer battery life expected for Apple’s new phone, last-minute leak claims

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Apple’s upcoming iPhone is likely to have faster face recognition, a better zoom on its camera, and a longer battery life, according to new leaks.

Max Weinbach, who operates the Twitter account PineLeaks, revealed this new information on 11 October, two days before the phone launches.

Apple will be shipping the new iPhone with a "dynamic zoning algorithm", which would make unlocking the device with a user’s face faster as well as reducing the size of the notch – something which previous leaks have also alluded to.

Apple uploaded new, smaller icons designed to illustrate the various iPhone 12 devices to its iCloud site which seem to suggest a reduced notch.

However, the notch might only be reduced in width on the smaller iPhone 12 mini.

It is also suggested that all iPhones will receive an improved digital zoom, an apparent “massive boost” according to Weinbach.

Both the quality of the camera and the distance at which it can capture is set to be improved.

“Night mode is being extended to the telephoto camera. That telephoto is also being tested with 3x optical zoom. They are trying for 25x to 30x digital zoom, but it depends on how good it can be”, he tweeted. 

“Improved digital zoom will be achieved by combining several frames at different zoom levels and stacking them together - an hybrid of cropping and optical zooming. An algorithm based off of Deep Fusion will take care of correct alignment and sharpening. Smart HDR 3 does the rest.”

Night mode will also be improved with a larger aperture on the phone’s ultra-wide lens, which will apparently significantly improve low light performance. It is expected this will be launched on the iPhone 12 Pro Max. 

White balance and LiDAR – the depth sensor introduced for the iPad which is expected to arrive on the iPhone – will also be improved, so that it can be used for portait mode.

However, it is unclear whether this will roll out immediately; Weinbach says it could be delayed to the iPhone 13 or could come in a later update to the iPhone’s operating system, iOS 14. 

Finally, Weinback suggests that the battery life for the iPhone will be improved by an hour, due to the battery drain of expected 5G support. 

That said, the iPhone 12 mini is expected to perform worse than the iPhone 11 with regards to battery life, because of its form factor.

Apple is apparently expecting the standard version of the four upcoming iPhones to be more popular than the rest.

It will apparently feature a periscope lens, but might launch without headphones or a charger. 

It is also expected to have a more rectangular body and a new A14 Bionic chip.

Apple is also said to be working on new charging technology and pucks for the iPhone, a new HomePod, a new Apple TV and potentially other products too.