Apple introduced a wide range of changes with the iPhone 15 Pro models, and the new camera upgrade is one of the most prominent additions. According to investor notes by Ming-Chi Kuo, the company's new glass-plastic hybrid lens in the iPhone 15 Pro Max could spark up a trend in the Android smartphone space. Companies currently use plastic lenses with various drawbacks compared to glass and plastic hybrid lenses.

iPhone 15 Pro Max exclusively features a glass-plastic hybrid lens, with the competition soon to follow the same route

The news was shared by industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, suggesting that the glass-plastic hybrid will benefit from both materials. Glass lenses are typically heavier and larger than plastic lenses and take more internal space in a smartphone. This is one of the reasons why only the iPhone 15 Pro Max features the technology. To accommodate and maneuver the heavier lenses, the company must also incorporate a heftier motor, which could draw more power from the device when dealing with optical image stabilization. Glass is also more prone to damage than plastic, which does not make it an ideal candidate.

Smartphone manufacturers typically adopt plastic lenses, which take away most of the drawbacks of an all-glass lens. The iPhone 15 Pro Max features a tetraprism lens, a hybrid of Glass and plastic, called 1G3P. It is composed of 4 lenses - three plastic and one glass. The hybrid lens draws benefits from the glass and plastic materials, eliminating the disadvantages a device would get from an all-glass design.

Apple has placed various lenses to reduce distortions in the image quality. The company is not the only one using the technology; Huawei has also incorporated the glass-plastic hybrid in its P70 Art. With these companies leading the way, other companies like Samsung, Google, and more will join the race.

The use of glass-plastic hybrid lenses in the iPhone 15 Pro Max and P70 Art indicates new critical trends in the lens industry, including:

1) The use of molding/spherical glass in glass-plastic hybrid lenses instead of the lower performance wafer-level glass (WLG),

2) 8P lenses facing competition from 1G6P, with the latter’s advantages in lower height and gradually improving cost difference compared to 8P,

3) The glass-plastic hybrid lens as a better solution to solve lens deformation caused by CCM design,

4) After Apple and Huawei’s use of glass-plastic hybrid lenses, other brands’ high-end models are likely to follow suit in the future.

On the iPhone 15 Pro Max, the 1G3P lens is supplied exclusively by Largan, but the glass element is outsourced. If Largan meets Apple's quality standards, it could gain additional orders from the iPhone as soon as 2025 or 2026. As mentioned, only the iPhone 15 Pro Max features a tetraprism lens, but reports have coined that the technology will trickle down to the iPhone 16 Pro next year.