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If you are hunting for Apple iPhones with telephoto lens, I have taken the time to draw up the list for you. In addition, this article explains and shows you how to figure out which future models will have the same feature. This is because Apple has a clear-cut strategy for determining which models get the feature.
How useful is a telephoto lens on a cell phone ? Telephoto lens offer one major benefit – the ability to zoom in ( Optical zoom ) on a scene or a subject without losing any detail. Other phones offer digital zoom, which is the phone using clever software to crop into the subject you want to focus on. Optical zoom is true zoom. As such, iPhones with a telephoto lens enable you to take fantastic, detailed zoom shots.
Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max is one of the best iPhones with telephoto lenses
- 2024 iPhones with telephoto lens
- Older iPhones with telephoto lens
- The best Apple iPhone with telephoto lens
Which iPhones have a telephoto lens? Here is a comprehensive list of Apple’s darlings equipped with a telephoto lens in the last four years. If you opt to buy any of these phones listed below, you will be getting a solid camera phone.
2024 iPhones with telephoto lens
- Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max
- Apple iPhone 15 Pro (see our hands-on review )
The iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max are the only models released in 2023 that Apple fitted with a telephoto lens. This means they are the best ones you can buy for much of 2024, until newer models are released in October. In October, the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max will arrive to join the list.
Older iPhones with telephoto lens
- Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max
- Apple iPhone 14 Pro
- Apple iPhone 13 Pro max
- Apple iPhone 13 Pro
- Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max
- Apple iPhone 12 Pro
Looking at the above list, you must have noticed a pattern: they comprise of only the iPhone Pro and Pro Max models flagship models. All the iPhones with telephoto lens are are the top two models for each year.
A telephoto lens is an advanced piece of work, and an expensive item, too. The cost of a telephoto lens is part of the reason behind the price differences between the non-Pro models and the Pro models. Outside of Apple’s world, telephoto lenses are a rare occurrence outside of premium flagships.
For example, the iPhone SE series lack a telephoto lens, and those phones’ cameras do not measure up to those of the higher end iPhones. One fairly easy way to tell if a camera phone is top notch is to check whether a telephoto lens is on the list of features and specs. If it is, you are looking at a solid camera phone.
To answer the question, Which Apple iPhones have a telephoto lens? The answer is: the iPhone Pro models. These are models that have a “Pro” in their names e.g. iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. You can use this simple hack to figure out which future models will have telephoto lens. Of course, Apple may change their approach at any time and include telephoto lens in other class of phones. But you can almost be 100% sure that the iPhone Pro models will almost always have it.
iPhone 12 Pro Max camera with telephoto lens and sensor-shift image stabilization
The best Apple iPhone with telephoto lens
As at July 2024 when this article was originally written, the best Apple iPhone with a telephoto lens was the iPhone 15 Pro Max . Its amazing periscope telephoto camera allows for up to 5x optical zoom and has produced some of the most fantastic zoom photography ever on a mobile phone.
Author:Mister Mobility
Digital Skills and Communication Coach | Mobile Phone Connoisseur since 2001 | Tech Blogging since 2004
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When true AI phones arrive, you will have to give up your dependency on a screen and individual apps as the primary means of interacting with your device.
We have seen AI in operation in modern smartphones, but in the future, AI phones will be totally different from how today’s smartphones work.
- Today’s AI Phones
- How we interact with cell phones
- True AI Phones of the future will change that
Today’s AI Phones
What we call AI phones today are an elementary stage in the evolution of the concept of Artificial Intelligence. They are like the early stage embryo of a baby’s development. They are at such an early stage that they look nothing like what the true AI phones of the future will be like.
What we have right now are the same old smartphones that we are used to, infused with a smattering of rudimentary AI features in their cameras, image editors, and voice assistants.
Almost every modern smartphone, from the premium flagship models to entry-level Android phones, has some measure of this features. For photography, they use AI to enhance the camera’s performance, including helping the camera to recognize the scene and adjusts settings for optimal results. That’s the most common implementation of AI in smartphones today.
Thanks to Google, almost every Android smartphone also has AI in Google Photos, so they can carry out a number of smart editing activities, including Portrait, Photo Unblur and Magic Eraser, among others.
Voice Assistants have become the poster boys for Artificial Intelligence in smartphones. Whether you are using Siri in an iPhone or Google Assistant in a Samsung, OnePlus, or Google Pixel phone, talking to your phone and having it speak back to you with intelligent answers is cool, next-generation stuff.
It feels like science fiction come true; right? Almost every futuristic movie has humans speaking to computers and vice versa. Beyond the optics, it is a convenient way of interaction, afterall that is primarily how humans have evolved to interact with one another – by talking.
But what we are experiencing with GA and Siri are still pretty basic, because they are unable to actually carrying out a lot of instructions just by talking. We still need to tap and scroll on those big (and small) screens. Today’s smartphones are still tied primarily to screens.
How we interact with cell phones
The biggest shifts in cell phones have been about how we interact with them. The earliest cellphones had alphanumeric keypads. Then a shift happened when a new generation of phones arrived with QWERTY keyboards, allowing much easier and convenient interaction.
Then the first generation of touchscreen phones arrived with stylus-enabled resistive screens. You couldn’t use your finger to interact with a resistive touchacreen; only a stylus. And after that, the iPhone arrived with a capacitive touchscreen, allowing for even greater interactivity via the screen, and we have been tapping and scrolling on screens ever since then. This will again change with the arrival of true AI phones.
True AI Phones of the future will change that
When these futuristic AI phones arrive, the primary means of interacting with them will not be screens or displays, but voice. Imagine speaking to your phone for everything you want to do – to launch your web browser, login to your blog, type an article, and publish it. Does it sound far-fetched? It will happen. You will not need to pick up your AI phone first in order to use it.
Finally, smartphones will be advanced enough to free up our eyes and hands for other activities, the really important ones – to spend time with our family and loved ones, to work, to play, without interrupting our lives. You would no longer have to stop one thing to pick up your phone for anything. Just talk to it like you would talk to your partner, colleague, or your dog. The phone can stay in your pocket or bag, or on the table all day, except for when you need to read an article or book, or watch a video.
This also means that apps will essentially die. AI phones will not rely on individual apps as today’s smartphones do. You simply talk to your phone to navigate tasks seamlessly without needing to open specific apps.
Also, consider a scenario in which your cell phone understands your ever-changing environment per time, so it can anticipate what you need. Your AI phone knows when you get in the driver’s seat of your car and connects to the car’s onboard system, adjusts the seat, the rear mirrors, temperature, and even does a quick diagnostics of the car to alert you of any potential issues. That is super convenience.
Imagine mentioning that you are hungry and your smartphone responds with a list of nearby spots where you can grab a quick bite. That’s the kind of natural interactions that happen between two humans; isn’t it? That’s the whole idea of Artificial Intelligence, and future AI phones will do it.
When you get in bed at night and out your AI phone down, it adjusts to a night mode, powering down volume for everything else but your wake-up alarm (if you have one set), turns off mobile data or wi-fi (if Google, Apple, and con will ever allow that, considering how they are obsessed with always needing to access your data and location), and adjusts in multiple other ways to conserve data, processing power, and battery.
The same way your friend or partner knows what you like to read and watch, your AI phone will learn from your behavior, interests, and interactions, and recommend books, movies, or activities that it knows you will enjoy. It might seem far-fetched now, buy when that time comes, some will say, “If one has an AI phone, who needs a friend?” Trust me; humans can be crazy like that. I won’t be surprised if that phrase ever becomes a buzz word some day.
The whole idea is that AI phones will radically change how we interact with our devices. It will be mostly free us from looking at and tapping/scrolling through screens. The whole idea of having to manage screen time will largely become a non-issue.
Simply put, true AI Phones will make it possible for you to put your device away. And I can’t wait to see that happen.
Author:Mister Mobility
Digital Skills and Communication Coach | Mobile Phone Connoisseur since 2001 | Tech Blogging since 2004
