Apple's Evolutionary iPhone 11 Refresh To Bring New Taptic Engine, Wide-Angle Smart Frame Cam

The iPhone 11 family -- as it's being called for now -- is most easily differentiated [externally] from its predecessors by a square camera pod on the rear. On the XS and XS Max successors, that means a third, wide-angle camera joints the party. 9to5Mac expands upon this information, however, indicated that the wide-angle camera will support a new feature called Smart Frame. 

The publication notes that Smart Frame "captures the area around the framed area in pictures and videos so that the user can adjust the framing or perform automatic perspective and crop corrections in post." According to the report, the information is only held temporarily, and is purged after a set amount of time for privacy reasons.

The iPhone XR follow-up also gains an additional camera on the rear, taking its total to two, while the front-facing FaceTime HD camera on all models is set to gain slo-mo 120fps capture capabilities.

Other features rumored are the inclusion of Apple's next-generation A13 SoC. The Lighting port will still stick around this generation despite the fact that the iPad Pro shifted to the industry standard USB-C port last year. We may have to wait until the 5G iPhone arrives in 2020 to see a full shift to USB-C on the phone side. Display resolutions for the three 2019 iPhones are expected to remain the same, while the iPhone XR successor is said to retain its Liquid Retina LCD. Finally, all new iPhones will get a revamped Taptic Engine that will need to in part make up for the rumored removal of 3D Touch.

All in all, this looks to be a rather sedate and uninteresting upgrade to the iPhone family and there don't appear to be any "killer" features that would spark mass upgrades. That will likely have to wait until 2020...

(Images Courtesy Mobile Fun)