Rumors have long been saying that the new iPhone 12 will have a “retro” aesthetic inspired by the Iphone 4. A new image supposedly taken from the beta code of iOS 14 It would confirm the new aesthetic as well as the LiDAR sensor of the iPhone 12.
The image obtained by Concepts iPhone and republished by @Choco_bit – a tweeter who in the past has leaked various details of future Apple products – is a schematic illustration that leaves little room for doubt.
The thick curved band of the iPhone 11 is no longer in this illustration. In its place you can see a thin band that surrounds the iPhone 12. This flat band would be made of metal, presumably steel.
In the upper left corner is the camera module, with three optical sensors with the drawing of the lens rings: normal, wide angle and zoom.
The fourth sensor does not have the ring and, as in the case of the iPad Pro 2020, it would be the LiDAR sensor.
The fourth sensor of the iPhone 12: LiDAR
We don’t know yet what new optical sensors and what lenses the new iPhone 12 will have, but we do know that the LiDAR sensor – what other manufacturers call Time-of-Flight – is capable of capturing reality in three dimensions, something that will help integrate virtual objects with reality in a way that until now was not possible.
In very simplistic terms, a LiDAR sensor – Light Detection And Ranging, detection and measurement of distance by light – triggers a laser with a pattern to illuminate a scene invisible to the human eye. The LiDAR sensor camera then measures the time it takes for each photon to go from the sensor to the surface of an object and back to the emitter.
By measuring the time it takes to go and return (hence its other technical name: Time-of-Flight, the photon flight time) you can calculate the distance between the LiDAR device and the objects it encounters along the way.
In the process you can also apply algorithms to analyze how the light pattern that you have projected onto the surfaces is deformed, which makes the machine better light the nature of each object. This data can be used by an artificial intelligence engine to know that a chair is a chair, for example.
There are other considerations that happen every time the laser is fired 120 times per second, like the presence of fenced-in light sources or concave surfaces that can confuse the LiDAR sensor – but all of that can be solved with more artificial intelligence algorithms. The Bionic processor of Apple machines is specially designed to execute this type of algorithms in parallel and very quickly.
Knowing what the 3D world is like gives you the ability to integrate real and virtual objects convincingly. For example, an augmented reality game running on the iPad Pro will now be able to project a virtual monster behind a sofa, as if it were really there.
This sensor is the first hardware step that Apple has taken for its landing in the world of augmented, virtual and mixed reality. A world that, according to what we know, could be the Next Big Thing – the next great invention to revolutionize consumer electronics like the iPhone did in its day. In fact, it is the beginning of the end of the iPhone – which will end up replaced by Apple glasses and a constellation of wearables, like smart watches and earphones.
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