Oh how far we have fallen.
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2026
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Honestly I wonder how mich of the size increase is function v aesthetics/marketing.
It's mostly function for cameras like that. The lense stacks for cameras these days is some really cool stuff crammed into a really tiny package. I don't know the exact function of each camera, but they are collecting a lot of light to focus on a small camera sensor and are able to achieve some amazing results for various focal depths.
More lense with bigger holes equal more light, usually.
The biggest ones are going to be your generic filters which need big enough to keep the rings from interfering with the field of view.
There is some super cool engineering packed into those thing, but mainly because of their size.
There certainly is some element of fashion, especially on budget devices.
Goes like:
Premium device adds huge lenses for photo quality -> Public perception becomes that huge lenses are indicative of quality -> Imitator brands add large glass circles over lenses that don't need them to make them look more premium
And the perception is also that more lenses is better (which is true to a point) so we're getting phones with five or six cameras or sensors on the back looking like spider eyes staring at you.
If tech suddenly appeared tomorrow which enabled as-good quality with only a single small lens, manufacturers would struggle to shift back to it because the public would think "It must be rubbish"
Splitting hairs, but that’s not the most recent iPhone.
Yeah that looks like a 15 or a 16, not a 17.
Splitting hairs, it's a repost
The title isn’t.