Apple has just launched the iPhone 17 series, and there are quite a few camera changes this time. We’ve got a square selfie camera sensor that enables portrait or landscape shots without rotating the phone, a 48MP 4x camera for the Pro phones, and a 48MP ultrawide camera for the standard model.
Unfortunately, one thing you won’t find on the standard Phone 17 is a telephoto camera. Apple has decided to skip this option yet again, and this is a frankly embarrassing decision in 2025.
What do you think of the iPhone 17 lacking a tele camera? 14 votes It's a bad move for an $800 phone 64 % I don't care about tele/zoom cameras 36 %
A telephoto camera isn’t an ultra-premium feature
Robert Triggs / Android Authority
Apple hasn’t offered a telephoto camera on its base iPhone since it first introduced tele cameras in 2016. And this trend continues with the iPhone 17, despite the device’s $800 price tag.
Apple wasn’t alone in this regard. Google also omitted a tele camera from its standard Pixel phones since 2021. However, even the Pixel maker wised up and brought a 5x periscope camera to the $800 Pixel 10 last month.
This isn’t just an enthusiast feature, either, as colleague Rita El-Khoury explained earlier this year. She noted repeated conversations with non-techie people about the disappointing camera zoom on their regular Pixel phones. In other words, people might not know what a telephoto camera is, but they still want good camera zoom.
This sentiment was also shared by our readers in the lead-up to the Pixel 10’s release. We posted a poll asking whether readers wanted a telephoto camera on the base model. Over 90% of surveyed users expressed at least some interest in this camera, and over half of the total respondents said they “absolutely” wanted it. So it’s clear that our audience values good camera zoom too.
A telephoto camera isn't reserved for $1,000+ phones anymore, but Apple hasn't received the memo.
Google is far from the only company offering a telephoto camera on its base flagship phones. Samsung has long offered a 10MP 3x camera on its vanilla Galaxy S phones, including the Galaxy S25. And guess what? The S25 has the same $799 price tag as the iPhone 17. Even the $649 Galaxy S25 FE offers an 8MP 3x camera, while the $599 OnePlus 13R has a 50MP 2x camera.
I don’t even have to spend $600+ if I want good camera zoom in 2025. Realme’s recent Pro Plus phones retail for up to $500 and offer 3x 50MP cameras, the $379 Nothing Phone 3a has a 2x 50MP camera, and the $459 Nothing Phone 3a Pro has a 3x 50MP camera. The Nothing Phone 3a in particular is less than half the price of the iPhone.
Apple’s decision is particularly frustrating as it continues to go to great lengths to fudge its camera zoom claims. The iPhone 17 product page claims that the device has “2x telephoto” and “2x optical” capabilities, when it’s doing a crop from the main camera. There is no separate telephoto camera.
You know what would go a long way to legitimizing the iPhone 17’s zoom claims, though? A freaking telephoto camera. But here we are in 2025 with an $800 phone that likely takes zoom photos on par with a cheap Android phone.
Give the people what they want, Apple
That’s not to say the iPhone 17 doesn’t have some neat features. I quite like the more flexible selfie camera that allows for portrait or landscape shots regardless of the phone’s orientation. Apple also continues to offer best-in-class video capture. Finally, I’m glad to see Apple finally embracing 256GB of base storage, leaving Google and Samsung as the only two major manufacturers still offering 128GB of base storage in their vanilla phones.
However, it’s downright embarrassing for an $800 phone to lack a telephoto camera in 2025. Sure, there’ll be some vocal people who don’t care about cameras on their phones. But it’s clear for most people that if you’re paying big money for a phone, it better have good zoom.
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