A new article by YMCinema has highlighted Canon’s latest submission to the US Patent and Trademark Office, and it may be the company’s clearest signal yet that it’s preparing to enter the camera phone market.
The filing, titled "Image Pickup Device Capable of Performing Image Pickup in a Plurality of Image-Pickup Modes in Parallel and Control Method Thereof", is a heck of a mouthful, but reveals more than just legal jargon and flowcharts. Read closely and it points toward something far more intriguing: a smartphone with serious cinematic ambitions.
This isn’t the first time Canon has explored the idea. Back in late 2023, I reported on a similar patent that toyed with multi-lens capture for mobile devices. This new submission looks like an evolution of that work.
The diagrams don’t show a vague camera body or a generic box, like many patent filings; they show a phone. A phone with a touchscreen interface, volume buttons, front and rear cameras, and UI elements that could have been lifted straight from a mobile camera app.
The system itself appears clever. It would enable a device to record video and still photos in parallel, each through different lenses, without the usual stutters or interruptions that plague today’s phones when switching modes.
Imagine filming a wide-angle concert video while grabbing crisp telephoto stills at the same time, never missing a beat. For content creators and mobile filmmakers, it could be a workflow game-changer.
And the timing couldn’t be better. Smartphones have become the everyday creative tool, steadily closing the gap with dedicated compact cameras. Partnerships like Oppo with Hasselblad or OnePlus with Leica show just how valuable camera branding has become in this space.
Canon – with its approachability, color science, and decades of cinema expertise – could elevate that trend to another level. Whether it launches a Canon-branded smartphone or partners with a major Android manufacturer, the result would shake up both industries.
Of course, there’s always the caveat that patents don’t guarantee products. Sometimes they never make it past the lab. But this one feels different. With smartphones now expected to handle professional-grade video and photography, Canon’s entry seems less like a 'what if' and more like a 'when.'
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