You might want to wait to get excited about the iPhone 13. That's because the upgrades planned for the next few years are even more enticing.

Thanks to Ming-Chi Kuo's new prediction (via MacRumors), we can be sure that this year's iPhone will get some solid upgrades to the front and back cameras. But in 2023, Kuo says Apple will finally add a "periscopic telephoto lens."

Several flagship Android phones already use periscope lenses. For example, one of the telephoto cameras on the back of Samsung's Galaxy S21 Ultra is capable of 10x optical zoom, which is also augmented with up to 100x digital zoom.

The iPhone 12 Pro Max, currently the best iPhone for zoom, can only manage up to 2.5x magnification before having to resort to up to 12x digital zoom.

This year's iPhone 13 will not feature this new periscope lens, but the telephoto camera will not remain the same; according to Kuo, Apple will replace the current 5-division lens with a 6-division lens. This should result in a more accurate image with less distortion when zooming in on a subject.

This year's model will also feature a new Face ID module made of plastic instead of glass. This should make this component cheaper overall. However, it is doubtful that this will mean that Apple will lower prices in the opposite direction.

Looking further ahead, Kuo claims that the 2022 iPhone 14 will have improvements along similar lines, although it will not yet feature a periscope lens. The telephoto camera will move from a six-section lens to a seven-section lens, and the front camera will also feature a new "unibody lens design."

This latter upgrade should make the notch even smaller than the reduced notch rumored for the iPhone 13. Apple may even adopt a punch-hole style camera, similar to those found in many current Android phones, for the "Pro" model or all models, as Kuo previously suggested.

The iPhone 12 Pro Max already ranks high on our best phones list. However, it is not a perfect phone, and one area that could be greatly improved is the camera hardware. Its superior photo processing software means it outperforms the other phones on our best camera phones list.

But an iPhone with a powerful telephoto camera and no display cutout could be an Apple phone that is hard to fault at all. We may still have to wait a few more years.