Every other day, we hear a new leak about the iPhone 17 series as its launch draws closer. The latest one suggests that the iPhone 17 Pro will receive a major upgrade to its telephoto camera, allowing it to switch between 5x and 8x optical zoom.
We already knew that the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max would feature a 48 MP triple-camera setup. Now, a new leak from a well-known tipster, Instant Digital (source), hints at an even bigger boost in zoom quality. Shared on Weibo, the leak describes the upcoming iPhone as the “strongest telephoto phone,” but did not elaborate further.
The leak also suggests that this new 48 MP telephoto lens will offer up to 8x optical zoom, according to Macrumors‘ tipster. More specifically, the lens will be able to switch between 5x and 8x zoom. This could explain the bigger camera bump that is part of the aluminum frame of the iPhone 17 Pro and the Pro Max models this year.
Since a moving camera system requires more space to work, the 48 MP telephoto lens marks a big jump from the 12 MP sensor on the iPhone 16 Pro models. If the leak turns out to be true, the iPhone 17 Pro’s telephoto could be the strongest out there, rivaling some of the Chinese flagships like the Vivo X200 Ultra and Oppo Find X8 Pro.
A moving sensor in an iPhone seems still seems unlikely, as it would require more internal space. Anyway, Instant Digital has also claimed that the base iPhone 17 Pro will start at 256 GB of storage with a $50 price hike. So we will have to wait until the September 9th event to see exactly what Apple has in store for us with the new iPhones.
