MacBook Pro 2025: New camera with thinner design?
The image quality of the integrated cameras on Apple notebooks is still below average. Will a new supplier provide a remedy?
Unfolded MacBook: The MacBook Pro M5 is not expected until 2025 at the earliest.
(Image: Omar Tursic / Shutterstock.com)
Apple is apparently planning improvements and modifications to the camera system of its MacBooks. As the well-known and often accurate analyst Ming-Chi Kuo from investment firm TF International Securities writes in a new report to investors, Apple is looking for a new supplier for 2025 that manufactures particularly compact camera modules. The manufacturer of the Compact Camera Module (CCM) is allegedly Sunny Optical with production facilities in Vietnam.
Straight into the Macs after next?
Kuo assumes that the collaboration will begin with a "MacBook (Pro) M5", although these devices are not expected to be available until summer or fall of next year at the earliest. Currently, Apple has only equipped the iPad Pro with the predecessor SoC M4; the chip has not yet landed in MacBooks.
However, Sunny Optical is not new to Apple's supplier portfolio. According to Kuo, there was already a business relationship until 2023, but the company lost orders for lenses at that time due to production problems. In addition to the Mac, the company is also said to be active for the iPhone, which was apparently previously its main business. According to the report, Sunny Optical can supply both CCMs and lenses and is vertically integrated. Kuo expects sales to double in the longer term. Currently, Apple's orders across all CCMs are three times Sunny Optical's annual turnover.
Not reaching the iPhone level
Apple is apparently planning thinner cases in the style of the iPad Pro M4 for the next but one MacBook. Lately, the trend has gone in the opposite direction, with portable Macs becoming somewhat thicker again and getting significantly more ports. Sunny Optical should be able to produce suitable modules. However, Kuo did not provide any details on the performance of the new CCMs. However, users have been waiting a long time for the image quality to improve.
The rumor mill is currently expecting Apple to launch the first MacBook Pro models with M4, both 14 and 16-inch, at the end of 2024. An M4 Pro and M4 Max are also being considered. The next major upgrade would then take place in 2025. The M5 may also be used in the iPad Air first. Sharp and LG Innotek are currently supplying the CCMs for the MacBook.
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