New iPhone 2019: Leaks claim to offer look at bizarre design for latest Apple phone

Three lenses could offer three dimensions

New renders claim to show what this year's iPhone could look like – and it's very strange.

Apple almost certainly will not announce the new handset until September this year, but rumours are already starting to begin. And one of the first also seems to show what might be its strangest feature: a huge camera array on the back, which includes a full three lenses.

Those are set in a large bump coming off the back, alongside a flash. The three are arranged in a strange line-up: the lenses are in a triangle, and the flash is laying off to the side.

As well as the unusual arrangement of the lenses, even the large bump is likely to prove controversial among Apple users who have complained about the fact that modern iPhones have small hills sticking out of their back.

The use of three lenses has long been rumoured as a potential future product for the iPhone, but it is unlikely that anyone expected them to be arranged in this way. On all of Apple's dual-lens cameras, the two pieces of glass have been lined up next to each other, though Apple has rotated that arrangement as new phones have been released.

Using three lenses could be a simple way of allowing the phone to capture more light and colour. But it could also have more futuristic uses: the arrangement could potentially allow for the phone to see in 3D, allowing it to be used for augmented reality or taking three-dimensional photographs.

Apple first introduced the idea of two lenses in its phones with the iPhone 7 Plus, and it has since spread to almost everyone of its new iPhones.

The new renders come from Onleaks, a usually reliable leaker who assembled renders with an Indian technology website to demonstrate what they might look like.

Onleaks said the renders come from early versions of the phone – but big features such as the strange camera array would usually be decided upon by now.