Future iPhones could upgrade the main camera sensor from 48MP to 200MP, enabling perks such as crisper, higher-resolution photos with more detail.
Weibo leaker “Digital Chat Station,” who has a decent track record and made several accurate predictions about Apple’s future products, said today that Apple is now testing samples of a 200MP camera sensor.
Don’t expect the new sensor to appear in the 2025 iPhones as the upcoming iPhone 17 lineup is rumored to bring triple 48MP cameras on the back.
Rumor: Apple is testing a 200MP iPhone camera sensor
If the leaker is correct, future iPhones could gain a 200MP camera like Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra. The current iPhone 16 lineup offers 48MP cameras.
By contrast, a 200MP sensor packs more than four times more pixels. The leaker hasn’t said if the new sensor might be part of the camera upgrades for the iPhone 18 family in 2026. If I had to guess, I’d say Apple will save this significant camera resolution upgrade for the twentieth-anniversary iPhone in 2027.
“Digital Chat Station” also shared today that some of the models in next year’s iPhone 18 lineup will move Face ID components housed within the Dynamic Island area underneath the display, leaving only a small hole in the display for the selfie camera. The iPhone 19, launching in 2027, would bring an under-screen selfie camera, creating a seamless appearance without visible interruptions in the display.
200MP iPhone camera perks
Like with current iPhones, Apple could make use of additional camera pixels to offer software-based telephoto zoom by cropping the middle of the sensor. This is the technique that the iPhone 16e uses to offer a “2x telephoto” option.
48MP iPhones also offer 12MP photo capture with increased low-light sensitivity through a software technique known as pixel binning. Pixel binning divides the camera sensor into groups of 2×2 pixels, and the algorithm fuses each 2×2 group into one image pixel. This reduceds image resolution by a factor of two, but each pixel is now four times as sensitive to light.
Pixel binning coupled with 200MP imaging sensor could enable Apple to offer 48MP capture with improved low-light sensitivity, something that’s missing from today’s 48MP iPhones.
And of course, snapping pictures in native 200MP mode would bring at least four times the detail, letting you zoom deeper without blurring, crop further and print your photographs at larger sizes without losing quality.
200MP imaging isn’t unheard-of in the smartphone world. Some high-end Android phones offer 200MP cameras, including Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra (2023), Galaxy S24 Ultra (2024) and Galaxy S25 Ultra (2025).