iPhone 5 Rumor: Interchangeable Camera Lenses?

The latest Apple iPhone rumor relates to a specific audience: photographers.

A U.S. patent filed by Apple hints that Apple is interested in developing an iPhone with swappable camera lenses.

The patent, titled, "Back Panel for a Portable Electronic Device with Different Camera Lens Options" comes with illustrations of an iPhone-like device with the ability to change camera lenses in the same top-left corner.

The new technology, if implemented, would give the already-great iPhone's camera more abilities such as interchangeable lenses, filters, optical zoom, and optical image stabilization.

"It would be desirable to provide a structure for a compact device that allows the end user to reconfigure the optical arrangement of the device while retaining the benefits of assembling the device using a pre-assembled digital imaging subsystem," said a copy of the patent application available online.

The Apple iPhone 5 is supposed to come with a new design, 4G and LTE capabilities, and a quad-core processor.

Rumor has it that Steve Jobs was incredibly involved with the iPhone 5 before his death, and wanted to redesign the existing iPhone.

The idea behind the new interchangeable camera lens patent is that the back panel can removed to expose the digital imaging system. The system and the panel with the lens would interact properly because they would be held in alignment by the "iPhone's" case, and wouldn't require any wires between them.

A normal iPhone camera system uses a filter to make sure any infrared light does not hit the image sensor and distort the pictures. The new design would integrate this into the back panel, which when removed, would allow photographers to capture low-light black-and-white pictures.