GoKawiilThe iPhone 17 Pro has an awesome camera system, having held its own against the Galaxy S25 Ultra and fought its corner admirably in a video shootout against a professional cinema camera. The three rear lenses can capture beautiful images in pristine quality, and while I do like recent features such as the Photographic Styles and Apple's ProRaw image format, there's more I think Apple needs to do to help its phones appeal even more to pro and amateur photographers alike.
I've spent over 14 years reviewing iPhones and Android phones from all brands for CNET, and as a professional photographer, I've always had an eye toward testing the cameras of top models like the new Xiaomi Leica Leitzphone, which I awarded an Editors' Choice award for being the best camera phone I've ever used. The competition remains fierce, and Apple needs to push the boat out more than ever. These are a variety of features I'd love to see Apple incorporate into the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro.
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Most of the Xiaomi Leica Leitzphone's camera
In my review of the Leitzphone -- made in collaboration between Xiaomi and iconic camera maker Leica -- I called it "the best, most exciting camera phone I have ever used." And I meant it. This phone has taken some of my favorite images I've ever taken on a phone, and Apple would do well to see this as its benchmark for imagery prowess. There are several main elements that I think Apple should steal.
First, the main camera image sensor. It's physically much larger than the sensors found in most other phones -- including the iPhone -- which allows it to capture more light and therefore deliver better dynamic range. But it also uses something called LOFIC technology. Standing for Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor, those nonsense words basically mean it's able to capture better dynamic range in a single image, rather than combining multiple exposures into one final image -- as Apple currently does with its Deep Fusion software processing. Xiaomi's main sensor is excellent, delivering pristine images with beautiful exposures. Apple is rumored to be experimenting with LOFIC image sensors, though whether we see one on the next model isn't known.
But that's not all; the Leitzphone is also among the first camera phones to feature a continuous telephoto zoom that uses actual moving elements, just like a real camera zoom lens. It allows for better quality telephoto images as it relies less on digital cropping to zoom in further. Again, Apple has been rumored to be working on similar tech for at least the last couple of generations, so maybe the iPhone 18 is where we'll finally see it deployed.
There's plenty more I love about the Leitzphone's camera experience, but the sensor and the zoom are the main points I'd love to see Apple steal. Beyond that, I absolutely adore the built-in Leica color profiles -- especially Leica Chrome -- and while I'd love to see them built into Apple's camera, these are Leica-specific presets that won't be available on anything without a Leica red dot logo nearby. If you want them on your iPhone, you'll need to pay separately to use the Leica Lux iPhone app.
Samsung's My Filters color filter clone
Leica's filters aside, Samsung's My Filters is a tool hidden inside recent Galaxy camera phones that essentially lets you steal the color tones from one image and apply them to another. Say you found a lovely photo online with dreamy pastel tones and warm highlights. You can save that image to your phone (even a screenshot of it will do), load it into the filter creation tool within the camera app, and it will then create a new filter that aims to replicate the tones of that image. That filter will then be saved to your phone for you to apply to all your images later on.
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