Earlier this week one reliable source for all Apple news told us to expect for the next big Apple Event to be on the 10th of September. This event is of course the eagerly-awaited iDevices event where Apple would reveal its next generation of iPhone(s) and iPad(s)!

There have been many speculations, some backed with credible source and even photos, about how the iPhone 5S (we assume this is what it’s going to be called) will look like, and what new features that we can expect from it.

According to this Chinese blog – EXPreview, which somehow managed to get some pictures of the new iPhone 5S ‘skin’, the improvement will go to the graphics core, internal memory and the camera and the LED flash.  Yes, the camera and the flash!

Before we go through what’s the most important for us Mobile Photographers, let’s check out the other first. From the appearance point of view, if these pictures of mockups above from one Vietnamese blog Tinhte can be of indications, the new iPhone 5S will have ‘the same’ look as its older sibling, with one exception that the younger one seems to have different kind of LED Flash! Sharp-eyed readers would notice the third iPhone mockup which looks slightly different. Yes! As the rumour goes, for the first time in the iPhone’s history, Apple might be launching a ‘cheaper‘ version – codename 5C and as the C moniker might represent the fact that the cheaper phone could possibly come out in different Colours like its iPod cousins!

What about inside the belly? Well, according to MacRumors which also released some photos of the phone’s interior, the iPhone 5S will likely have the newer A7 chip and a higher capacity battery. This I suspect would result in a better processing power, which is certainly needed to cope with the new iOS7. I really (I want to) hope that the Battery life would improve, but my guess is even if it improves it won’t be too significant.  As a matter of fact it would be only 8% increase.  My iPhone 5 can only last about 8 hours in a single charge, an 8% improvement will only take me just a shy above 9 hours!  That’s not I call ‘revolutionary’.  But still maybe with other components optimisation, it might go higher.

Lastly, the Graphic processing power is expected to be upgraded from a tri-core to a quad-core processor, and with new video features they are planning to release, it’s no wonder they need this additional power, not to mention all those fancy iOS7 stuff.

Ok, enough with all those ‘boring’ stuff 😉 What about the cool stuffs, the stuff we most care about?!
Well, if I’m reading this right, Photography and Video seem to be indeed the most important upgrade this year!

Let’s start with the Camera itself.

According to a couple of blogs, the new iPhone 5S might carry 12-13 Mpx Camera!  Possibly the one made by Sony.

If Apple is going with what Sony has then not only the new iPhone will be able to take a more detailed picture but it will also improve its sensitivity in low-light condition.  This is one upgrade that the iPhone really can benefit. Though since all major mobile vendors; Samsung, Nokia and Sony itself had already released their own over-10-mpx camera phone; Apple once more is just playing catch-up.

Dual LED Flash

One major drawback of taking photos with your mobile is that it’s not doing a very good job in producing good photo in a low-light condition. Photography means ‘Painting with Light’ – so ‘No Light no Painting no Photo’. No matter how sensitive the sensor is, there will be one point where it reaches its limit and can’t push it anymore. That’s why people invented Flash, to provide the additional light when it’s the most needed.
SLR and DSLR or even Pocket Camera have been equipped with this powerful Flash from the very beginning while the Camera Phone, with some exceptions (love those old Ericssons and Nokias with Xenon) had never been that lucky.
For its new iPhone however Apple seems to try to rectify this handicap. First with putting more and more sensitive camera sensor, and now by giving 5S two LEDs instead of just one!

If you check out the leaked picture above, you will see the difference in shape on the case at the part where the flash is usually located. The hole for the LED on the iPhone 5 shapes like a circle while on the iPhone 5S it looks like a pill and longer vertically.

While Apple hasn’t gone all the way with Xenon flash, two are certainly better than one. Apart from it being able to illuminate a wider area with brighter exposure it will also add a longer distance to which the flash can reach.
What would be the quality of the resulting photo when using these double flash will remain to be tested and seen when we can get our hands on it.

These are the changes and improvements that we might be able to expect from the new iPhone 5S. There are a few other improvements on the Video side and some also from the software (iOS7) side, but those are topics for another post.
For now, it is safely to predict that Apple seems to be very keen and work very hard to improve their iPhone from Photography perspective judging from how many changes they are trying to put into the new handset.

What do you think about these improvements? Would they help your photography or they are just merely gimmicks? Let me know on the comments down below.

 

Images courtesy of: Tinhte.vn, MacRumors.