A new Samsung patent filed in South Korea corroborates recent rumors that the Galaxy S8 will ship with a dual camera setup. Just like Apple’s new dual-lens camera in the iPhone 7 Plus, the module could be used to allow for optical zoom.

Samsung filed the patent in its home nation on September 13, and in it, the company describes a new camera interface with improved zoom controls. One of them is the ability to adjust zoom with just one finger.

Samsung already provides the option to control exposure with one finger in its Galaxy camera app, but to control zoom, you must either use the pinch-to-zoom gesture that requires two fingers, or the physical volume buttons.

“Why is Samsung looking to improve the camera’s zoom control, when its current digital zoom capabilities are nothing to write home about?” asks SamMobile. Most likely because it is working on a way to deliver better zoom — just like Apple did.

The iPhone 7 Plus combines a traditional 12-megapixel camera and wide-angle lens with a secondary telephoto lens that allows for 2x optical zoom, and up to 10x digital zoom with improved picture quality. It also provides some nifty depth-of-field portrait effects.

Apple isn’t the first smartphone maker to do this, but now that the technology is available in the iPhone, it’s mainstream, and consumers will look for it. Samsung could miss out if it doesn’t compete and offer similar functionality in future Galaxy phones.

Of course, patents are never a guarantee of things to come, so we shouldn’t read too much into this just yet. And even if Samsung is indeed working on a dual-lens camera like Apple’s, there’s nothing to suggest it will be available with the Galaxy S8 next year.

Having said that, the company does have a tendency to “borrow” Apple’s best ideas, so we wouldn’t be too surprised to see this happen.

Would you like to see a dual-lens camera on the Galaxy S8?