Apple is reportedly very close to revealing the iPhone 5, and a photo posted on Flickr shows that the iPhone 5 will likely come with an 8-megapixel camera.
PocketNow discovered a photo posted to the account of an Apple engineer that is marked as having been snapped using an iPhone 4. However, PocketNow took a closer look at the metadata which contained pieces of information suggesting that it was taken using an 8-megapixel camera.
The site says that the photo of a plate of sushi “claims to have been taken by and iPhone 4, but the rest of its EXIF data tells a different story: although the image has been cropped to 2235x2291 (5.12 megapixels), the original picture was a much larger 3264x2248 – or just shy of eight megapixels. What’s more, the lens was recorded as a 4.3mm f/2.4, which is closer to that of a point-and-shoot than the iPhone 4’s actual 3.85mm f/2.8.”
The person that posted the photo said it was just a picture of his lunch, but the data behind the image seems to say much more. On top of that, the image was marked private after news of its existence spread throughout the blogosphere. The person that posted the photo lists his job as “Apple Software Engineer” and the GPS coordinates are tagged 1 Infinite Loop, Apple’s famous address.
If the iPhone 5 does in fact come with an 8-megapixel camera, it would confirm rumors that have been floating around for several months. In April there were reports that Sony CEO Howard Stringer had made statements that his company would provide Apple with an 8-megapixel camera. OmniVision has provided the last two iPhones with their cameras, but it’s possible that Apple has pegged a different supplier for the fifth-gen device.
So when will Apple release the iPhone 5? A Best Buy leak and an All Things D report both claim the phone will debut at the end of October. However, earlier this week Deutsche Telekom quietly started taking pre-order for the device, which could mean Apple will send out invites to an iPhone 5 event very soon.