Apple iPhone could get a major camera boost... thanks to Samsung

Apple's iPhone has long been heralded as having a decent camera offering. The company's phones don't necessarily have the highest resolution sensors of all the flagship smartphones out there, but they are superb at allowing users to simply point and shoot.

It's previously been rumoured that iPhone's camera offering could change in a couple of years, however. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported in July 2024 that Apple could switch from using Sony sensors to Samsung's for its iPhone 18 models, and now that's been supported by another source.

X user Jukanlosreve shared on the social media platform that Samsung is apparently working on a three-layer stacked image sensor for Apple's iPhone models in 2026.

The leak was picked up by 91Mobiles, and it claims the "sensor is more advanced than Sony's existing Exmor RS". This could result in it being used as the new main sensor.

It’s not clear from the leak whether the sensor will be used on all the iPhone 18 models or only the Pro models, although we suspect any changes to the camera setup and optics would arrive on the Pros first.

The leak might not say which iPhone 18 model the Samsung sensor might appear on but it does claim the sensor could adopt a PD-TR-Logic configuration, which as 91Mobiles says, would mean three chips stacked on top of each other and serving different purposes.

The report also says processing speeds could improve with the new sensor, allowing for faster clicking and shooting – though the iPhone is already pretty snappy at this (literally) – and the sensor should also improve dynamic range and colour accuracy.

The leaker also claimed in the same post that Samsung was "simultaneously developing a 500-megapixel sensor for its own Galaxy devices".

For now, this is all just rumour and the iPhone 18 models are well over a year away.

We’ve only just had the launch of the iPhone 16 models after all, so there’s a bit of time to wait for us to find out whether this rumour will come to fruition. It could be exciting if it does though so fingers crossed.