The Sony CEO and President, Sir Howard Stringer, may have accidently released information about the next generation iPhone 5 camera. When talking during an interview with the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg, he mentioned that a camera sensor factory in Sendai, Japan, had suffered devastating effects from the recent Earthquake, as well as a further 14 other factories from the company, and that shipments to Apple would be delayed.
According to 9to5Mac, Stringer said, more or less, "Our best sensor technology is built in one of the (tsunami) affected factories. Those go to Apple for their iPhones...or iPads. Isn't that something? They buy our best sensors from us?" Currently the cameras in the iPhone models are manufactured by OmniVision which begs the question, are Apple moving to Sony? The Street reported a story last year which seems to confirm the rumour, "Apple has picked Sony's 8-megapixel camera chip for the 2011 iPhone, according to supply and manufacturing sources, said Rodman Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar."
It's rumoured that the iPhone 5 may use the Sony's Exmor R 8MP camera sensors which are currently used in the Sony Ericsson Neo and Xperia smartphone. An anonymous source from Sony's UK office told Neowin, "We are experiencing lots of problems with supply, many of our factories, especially those that manufacture batteries, are not able to keep up with the high demand."
Image Source: Panoramio
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