The popularity of the iPhone 16 series has passed, and a new selling point of the iPhone 17 has quietly appeared, but the news is a little surprising: in addition to several air models of the next generation iPhone, a dynamic island The iPhone 17 Pro Max will be smaller.
This is not surprising, since the dynamic island shrinks with each generation, but after a deeper understanding, it is discovered that Steve Jobs’ final vision for mobile phone design is hidden .
Hyperlens is a nano-level lens
When it comes to what is the most prominent part of the iPhone, apart from the imaging module, it is the dynamic island If you want to reduce this view, you need to know where he is:
In 2017, iPhone X started Apple’s full-screen experience.
To maintain the screen-to-body advantage, the front parts of the iPhone have changed significantly on the platform along with the Home button The area that extends from the frame into the screen appear: Face ID and True Lens Depth Sensing, as well as distance sensing that helps the phone interact with the outside world.
With the iPhone 14 Pro series, the bangs have completely separated from the frame and become pill-shaped. Together with the software customization interface, it has become a famous dynamic island. This time the dynamic island of the iPhone 17 Pro Max has been reduced, and Apple has decided to act on the “original depth sensor lens”.
There are several key points in this system: an infrared lens, a dot matrix projector, a front lens, a flood light sensor element, a distance sensor and an ambient light sensor. Half of the components are inseparable from one key: the lens.
Traditional lens systems rely on pure optical design, bending and focusing light through curved curved glass or plastic materials The traditional lens manufacturing process is mature. However, even if the image quality of traditional lenses is very mature, there are still limitations: size and weight.
Traditional lenses require physical bending to focus light, and the structure of the lens limits the minimum size and weight of the lens. The emergence of hyperlenses can change everything. MIT published a research report in 2021:
Engineers have created an adjustable “metal lens” that can focus on objects at multiple depths without changing their physical position or shape. This lens is not made of solid glass, but a transparent “phase change” material that rearranges its atomic structure when heated, changing the way the material interacts with light .
There is one feature that stands out among the advantages of superlenses: weight and high quality. Compared to the “gun and cannon” of traditional optics and the “cookie head”, the super lens itself is at the nanometer level. The technical term for the thickness of this metal is “sub-wavelength thickness”: a structure whose thickness is less than the wavelength of electromagnetic waves is called sub-wavelength thickness.
Take a numerical example: Assume that the thickness of a certain material is 100 nanometers, and that the wavelength of the processing light wave is 500 nanometers The thickness of the material is the subwavelength thickness (100 nanometers).
Metalenses can be said to sit next to traditional lenses like contact lenses next to the Hubble telescope. Not only are the metals thin, but also you have a small working space If you have an old lens, you will definitely notice that when you turn the focus ring, the lens will move forward or backward a little due to the design traditional optical. if the lens wants to focus on objects at different distances, the lens must be moved to make the image clear.
Tian Gu, a scientist at MIT’s Materials Research Laboratory, said directly that the metals can focus on themselves:
The results show that the metals can image objects that cross at different depths without moving without moving the position of the parts, which is comparable to traditional mass optical systems.
In other words, the metals change the level, width and polarization of the incident light to focus without moving the position of the lens, saving a lot of space than traditional optical lenses. With traditional lens structures, the reduction in size and weight often sacrifices image quality However, premium lenses break through the limits and significantly reduce size and weight while achieving excellent image quality – good
Metalenses use nanostructures to precisely control light waves, break through the diffraction limit of traditional lenses, and achieve higher resolution at the same time, they use a single lens to reduce aberrations, chromatic aberrations and problems to correct others that require traditional lenses a lot of effort. to solve It can also focus light of different wavelengths to improve image quality. However, the MIT hyperlens uses GSST material and visible light cannot pass through it.
Fortunately, MIT is not alone in researching metalenses. In 2022, the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences published new results on hyperlenses in “Nature Communications”, achieving a multiple active zoom hyperlens in the visible light band. Metalenses represent progress in another direction: changing themselves to change focal lengths and support optical images visible to the naked eye.
The QYResearch report “Global Metalens Market Insights” predicts that the global Metalens (superlens) market will grow from US$ 41.84 million this year to US$ 1.4 billion in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 79.51%. US $ 645.26 million, confirming the prospects for new technology.
（Source:aluates Reports）
iPhone 17 Pro Max is a testing ground for excellent lenses
Of course, Apple does not miss out on young modern technologies. Last year, the famous analyst Ming-Chi Kuo pointed out that Apple has been looking for metals for more than a couple of days, and put together preliminary plans:
- Gradually reduce the plastic lens
- Controlling metalens production costs
- Vision Pro or later products will be widely used in 2026 at the earliest
If the news is correct, it is clear that Apple wants to be the first mover. After all, if the performance and durability of the super lens really meets the requirements of civilian products, the iPhone’s problematic lens bulge may be improved in the future, and then the body design will be more flexible and more generous internal structure.
Looking further, hyperlenses have great potential even in next generation personal end devices such as Vision Pro and the rumored Apple Glasses. According to this perspective, the shrinking dynamic island of iPhone 17 Pro Max is Apple’s first experimental area prepared for super lenses.
But don’t get too excited too soon According to Apple’s practice, the price of maintaining a dynamic island may rise again when the dynamic island becomes smaller. The current repair price for iPhone 15 series dynamic island damage is “other damage”, which is quite expensive. Apple’s knife style remains classy. Jobs mentioned the imaginary iPhone:
I hope that the mobile phone is like a “magic glass”, simple, thin and light, without unnecessary elements.
From the earliest construction of PolarRose in 2010 to the acquisition of PrimeSense in 2013, years of integration and optimization, using Face ID instead of Touch ID, finally the prototype of the current iPhone was born: iPhone X, which Apple in pursuit of this. magic glass.
Jobs’ vision is indeed correct. From iPhone 4 to iPhone 16, and then from bangs to dynamic islands, the iPhone has been going for more than ten years, and finally uses super lenses to welcome the future that ‘could be his final form.
(This article is written by Love style Reprinted with permission; source of first image:an apple)
