2025’s iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro models are expected to upgrade the front-facing camera from 12 to 24 megapixels for crisper selfies with finer detail.
That’s not the only upgrade for the front camera predicted to come to the 2025 iPhone models. According to reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the front shooter on these models will also use six plastic lens elements instead of five.
These improvements should provide a significant boost for photographs you’ll be taking with the iPhone’s front-facing camera in 2025, Kuo wrote in a new post on Medium.
iPhone 17’s front camera may double the resolution to 24 megapixels
Doubling the front camera resolution will allow you to crop and zoom in on your selfies while retaining detail, resulting in sharper images overall. Like with current iPhones, users will be able to shoot 24-megapixel selfies in the lossy HEIFF or JPEG format or opt to take selfies in Apple’s ProRAW format. ProRAW results in larger files but retains camera data, allowing for greater creative flexibility when editing photos.
The last time Apple increased the megapixel resolution of the iPhone’s front-facing camera was in 2019 when it launched the iPhone 11 with a 12-megapixel front shooter, a significant improvement over the 7-megapixel front camera on the iPhone 7, iPhone X and iPhone XS models.
All iPhones from the iPhone 11 onward have come equipped with a 12-megapixel front camera, but lens technology and aperture vary from one model to another.
The iPhone 11, iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 have a front camera aperture of ƒ/2.2. On the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 models, however, the aperture changed to ƒ/1.9, and autofocus was added to the mix.
As for the iPhone 16 family, Kuo predicts that the wide-angle camera on the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will get a new sensor at 48 megapixels and use a six-element lens design. If true, only the telephoto camera on this year’s iPhones will remain 12 megapixels.
Earlier, the analyst said that both the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will get the 5x tetraprism telephoto camera that debuted on last year’s iPhone 15 Pro Max.