iPhone 6s camera: features to include 4K video camera and flash for selfies

Hugely improved rear camera will be able to take 12 megapixel images, according to leaks

The back of an Apple iPhone 6 Plus gold, is shown here at a Verizon store on September 18, 2014 in Orem, Utah (George Frey/Getty Images)

The camera in the next iPhone is to be hugely upgraded, providing far more detailed pictures than ever before and packing in a flash in the front to help improve selfies.

The upgrades to the camera are set to be one of the biggest features of the next phone. Both the back and front of the cameras will be upgraded.

That will include a rear camera that will be able to take 4K video, making it one of the first phones with such high-resolution videos, according to a report by 9to5mac. The camera on the back will also be able to produce 12-megapixel images, which is as detailed as some separate cameras.

Those updates to the back camera will be supported by a new chip in the phone, which will mean that it can deal with such huge images without having to make them more blurry or shrink them down.

The camera on the front will also get new features, according to the same report. It will have a flash in it, so that selfies can be taken in the dark — that will not be an LED flash, as previously reported, but rather make the screen go especially white so that it lights up the face of people in front of it.

As well as the flash feature, the front camera will see an upgrade in image quality — letting it record slow motion HD video and take panoramas.

It has also previously been rumoured that the next iPhone will take advantage of the other big feature — Force Touch, which makes the screen pressure-sensitive — to enable special recording modes.

Apple has been touting the iPhone as a camera in recent marketing, including a high-profile “Shot on iPhone” campaign that has seen it feature huge photos taken on the handset instead of traditional billboards. The next phone is likely to have the same focus, with Apple “likely to highlight 4K as one of the new iPhone’s premier additions for marketing purposes”, according to 9to5mac.

The new phones are expected to launch at an event on September 9, when Apple is also rumoured to be launching its new Apple TV hardware.