Three iPhone 17 Pro features that continue to surprise me every day
When announcing the iPhone 17 Pro lineup, Apple highlighted the usual improvements like design improvements, a faster chip, and of course, the new Cosmic Orange color. But I bought a silver iPhone 17 Pro Max instead of orange, and after spending two months with it, the obvious things aren’t the ones I like the most. Instead, these are three upgrades that still surprise me months later.
Zoom, zoom!
Apple surprised the world by adding a second lens to the iPhone 7 Plus for 2x optical zoom. It didn’t take long for smartphones with multiple lenses to become the industry standard. However, over time, competitors eventually introduced phones with a much greater zoom range than the iPhone.
The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max already had a telephoto lens capable of taking photos and shooting videos with 5x optical zoom. I particularly like using this lens because it gives photos a more professional look, especially when it comes to portraits. I also like to have the best zoom for plane spotting.
With the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, Apple changed the telephoto lens. Instead of a 5x 12MP lens, the telephoto lens now has a 48MP sensor with 4x optical zoom. Although the drop from 5x to 4x may seem like a downgrade at first, I ended up loving the change.
First, the new sensor is much larger, 56% larger, to be exact. A larger sensor captures a lot more light, resulting in more detail and less noise, especially in low light conditions. Telephoto photos taken at night look significantly better than those taken with the iPhone 16 Pro camera.
At the same time, I feel like the 4x versus 5x zoom allows you to use the telephoto lens multiple times. With the iPhone 16 Pro Max, I had to move much further away from the subject to use the telephoto lens. The 4x camera is more suitable for portraits.
Additionally, as the sensor now has 48 megapixels, Apple has come up with an interesting trick. Essentially, the Camera app can crop the sensor image to capture photos and videos with 8x zoom at 12 megapixels. The result is not perfect, but it is good enough to capture distant things.
It’s probably the camera I use the most on my iPhone, and the photos and videos I’ve taken so far are nothing short of stunning. It didn’t seem like much at the time, but Apple made the right improvements to the iPhone’s telephoto lens.
Great selfies
It’s been a while since the iPhone’s front camera received major upgrades, but that changed with the iPhone 17. All new models in the lineup feature a new square-shaped sensor that takes 18 MP photos, up from 12 MP on the old one.
The first thing I noticed is that selfies taken with the new camera are a bit more detailed, especially when you zoom in. But the real difference happens when night falls. The new sensor performs significantly better in low-light scenarios. This alone makes the upgrade worthwhile for creators.
But there’s something else that made me love my iPhone 17 Pro Max’s new selfie camera.
Apple has significantly improved the iPhone 17’s selfie camera this year.
Foundry
As I’ve previously reviewed here on Macworld, the new square-shaped selfie camera sensor also enables a new feature that allows users to crop the photo in portrait or landscape orientation without having to rotate the phone. Essentially, you can take a photo from four different perspectives and the same angle.
It’s also great for vloggers, as this feature works for videos as well. This means you can hold your phone vertically, which is much more comfortable and natural, while still shooting videos horizontally. It’s especially useful on the iPhone 17 Pro Max because of its extra-large screen and body.
Cool under pressure
The iPhone 17 Pro is the first iPhone with a redesigned cooling system including a vapor chamber. You can’t see it, but you can definitely feel the difference, especially if you use your phone a lot and are coming from an older iPhone.
In short, a vapor chamber is essentially a thin sheet of metal with a liquid inside. When the phone heats up, the liquid evaporates instantly, helping to distribute heat throughout the chamber.
The first benefit, of course, is that the phone no longer gets extremely hot in the hands. This was something that bothered me in previous generations of iPhone, and I’m glad Apple fixed it.
But I also get better long-lasting performance because the phone doesn’t need to throttle the CPU and GPU speed to avoid overheating. This means I no longer experience lag on your phone, even when playing 3D games or editing videos.
The iPhone 17 Pro’s new vapor chamber does a remarkable job of keeping things cool.
Apple
Small improvements that make a difference
After two months, these are the upgrades that continue to shape my experience with the iPhone 17 Pro Max in ways I didn’t really expect. The new telephoto lens gives me more flexibility and better zoom, the selfie camera finally seems like a real step forward for creators, and the vapor chamber silently transforms the phone’s speed, freshness, and consistency during long sessions.
None of these changes seem as exciting as a whole new design or trendy new color, but these are the types of upgrades that really matter when you use your iPhone every day. And in a year where many people say smartphones are becoming “boring,” the iPhone 17 Pro lineup proves there’s still room for improvements that improve the experience in invisible ways.
