Virtually every major leak pertaining to Apple’s upcoming iPhone 6 has depicted a round flash hole on the back rather than the pill-shaped opening seen on the iPhone 5s.
In turn, several watchers have speculated that Apple may have abandoned True Tone flash altogether and switched back to the inferior single LED flash design.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
True Tone flash is part of the iPhone 5s’s improved camera performance. Can anyone in their right mind say that Apple engineers would be willing to forgo dual-LED flash design and therefore sacrifice better highlights and more natural-looking skin tones?
I consistently argued Apple must have instead found a way to engineer a round dual-LED flash. Indeed. Lo and behold, among a plethora of purported part leaks published earlier this morning by a French blog is a component featuring both white and amber LED lights packaged together in a round-shaped part…
The image top of post, first noticed and highlighted by MacRumors, clearly shows a round dual-LED flash component that could be destined for Apple’s next smartphone.
The photo is part of a rich image gallery of claimed iPhone 6 components posted earlier today by the French blog NowhereElse.fr [Google Translate].
MacRumors writes:
This round flash module is integrated into a purported iPhone 6 flex cable that contains several arms with a power button, a logic board connector, a microphone, and the round True Tone flash. The cable had been seen in a previous leak late last month, but only from the rear where the flash itself was not visible.
True Tone flash is Apple’s marketing moniker for a dual-LED flash module comprised of amber and white LED lights that allow for a more natural skin tones and better highlights in low-light scenarios.
From Apple’s iPhone 5s webpage:
The new True Tone flash gives the iSight camera capabilities that are the first for any smartphone. It’s made up of two LEDs, one white and one amber. But they don’t simply fire in tandem. When you take a picture with the flash enabled, the iSight camera uses software algorithms to assess the color temperature of the scene.
That allows iPhone 5s to determine just the right percentage and intensity of white light versus amber light you need — using over 1000 unique combinations. The result is a beautiful shot with more true-to-life colors. Not too cool. Not too warm. Better highlights. More natural-looking skin tones. And the same goes for the iSight videos you record.
I take a lot of photos on my iPhone 5s and True Tone flash does make a difference in low-light photography compared to pre-iPhone 5s iPhones and other single LED flash smartphones. This is especially true when shooting people in dark rooms as True Tone flash can distinguish between more than a thousand different color temperatures.
Both new iPhones — a 4.7-inch variant and the bigger, phablet-class 5.5-incher — should be revealed at the September 9 media event.
The iPhone 6 is expected to feature a redesigned and thinner enclosure and include an Apple-designed A8 chip (said to be clocked at 2GHz or more per core), a 13-megapixel Sony-made camera with optical image stabilization, three new sensors and more.