Apple's misleading iPhone 17 Pro camera marketing distracts customers from the real weaknesses
According to Apple, the Apple iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro offer significant camera improvements, but a direct comparison with the iPhone 16 shows that the upgrades are limited to the telephoto and selfie cameras. Like before, Apple installs a 48 MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera with a 1/2.55-inch sensor and a 48 MP main camera, which combines a 1/1.55-inch sensor with an f/1.6 lens on the iPhone 17 and iPhone Air, while the iPhone 17 Pro utilizes an f/1.78 lens and a 1/1.28-inch sensor.
The fact that Apple has not been able to improve these cameras has a number of disadvantages for users. On the one hand, the ultra-wide-angle camera still shows visible vignetting in initial sample photos, while significantly less detail is captured in the corners of the image. On the other hand, Apple relies on the ultra-wide-angle camera for macro photos, as it did on the iPhone 16 series and even uses 2x digital zoom as standard, effectively giving users a 26mm macro camera with a tiny 1/5-inch sensor.
Although it is possible to use the full 48 MP sensor and 13 mm field of view in macro mode, users must get very close to the subject in order to capture it in large format. Even Apple's own sample photos show that, compared to competitors that enable macro shots with the telephoto camera, the wide-angle lens results in a distorted perspective and a much greater depth of field. The fact that Apple uses the ultra-wide-angle camera for macro shots also means that the iPhone Air doesn't support macro mode at all.
No, the iPhone 17 Pro doesn't have a telephoto camera with 8x zoom
Even more annoying, however, is that Apple's marketing is more misleading than ever. The company explicitly advertises that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max achieve 8x optical zoom with a focal length of 200mm, which would be a blatant lie without a lot of fine print. The 48 MP telephoto camera with a 1/2.55-inch sensor offers a 35mm-equivalent focal length of 100mm. The advertised 8x zoom is only possible through digital magnification.
Apple advertises that this reaches the quality of optical zoom, but whether this is actually the case is questionable. This is because the digital zoom effectively transforms the camera into a 12 MP telephoto camera with a tiny 1/5-inch sensor; the effective sensor area is not even half the size of the 5 MP sensor in the iPhone 4 from 2010. Apple is not alone in this misleading marketing. Samsung, for example, also advertises 2x "optical quality zoom" for the Galaxy S25. In any case, Apple's marketing is so aggressive that unsuspecting customers could easily be misled.
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