Weibo leaker Digital Chat Station suggests that future iPhones may get multispectral camera sensors. While this could, in theory, provide improved color accuracy and better low-light performance, we shouldn’t get overly excited.
The technology has already been seen in a smartphone, but the results weren’t particularly impressive and the technology is mostly used in military and industrial cameras …
Digital Chat Station only went as far as saying that Apple was expressing interest in the technology.
Apple is also interested in “multi-spectrum”, the supply chain is being evaluated, and the test has not yet begun.
What is a multispectral camera?
Conventional camera sensors have receptors for red, green and blue light. By measuring the relative amounts of light captured by each receptor, the camera can calculate a color value for each pixel. For example, equal signals from red and blue receptors would indicate the color purple. Extremely precise measurements mean that millions of color variants can be detected.
All of the light detected by a conventional sensor is in the visible light spectrum. A multispectral camera, in contrast, can also detect frequencies beyond the visible light range, namely infrared and ultraviolet.
What’s the benefit?
Multispectral cameras are primarily used for military and industrial applications, especially in satellites and drones.
The technology was initially developed for military target identification, and has since found other uses for weather satellites, crop monitoring, and even detecting forged paintings. Commercially, it is used for quality control within production lines.
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