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Comment by OptionOfT | Hacker News Reader

Isn't this the first time they have an actual zoom lens vs multiple lenses and thus CMOS?

Edit: reading below it's still unsure if they actually have a lens that moves back & forth to achieve the zoom.

This is the first time they use linear (classic zoom) design. The previous one was a 90-degree periscope design. From 16 Pro Max specifications:

> 12MP 5x Telephoto: 120 mm, ƒ/2.8 aperture and 20° field of view, 100% Focus Pixels, seven-element lens, 3D sensor-shift optical image stabilization and autofocus, tetraprism design. 5x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out; 10x optical zoom range

An image showing what they did earlier: https://i.4pda.ws/s/as6yz0d0FvbZniF2YYSyZ3z2HOWajz2.jpg

There's absolutely no reason for them to introduce a new mechanical camera system. They previously marketed their cropping of the center 12MP of their 48MP sensor as 2x optical zoom. They will use the same method here.

Strongest argument that they didn't is that adding something like that is absolutely a thing Apple would have talked about at length in the press release. They love getting to do extensive "here's something cool that 'only Apple could do'" segments. (And we love to make fun of them for it.)

It's probably the same as the 2x zoom in the iPhone 16 line. The 1x pictures are a 48MP sensor that does some pixel-combining to output a 12MP image. The 2x pictures are a crop of 12MP in the center of the sensor, that doesn't do any combining. So it's still "optical", but it's lower-quality than the 1x.

I think it's not "zooming with the sensor", but has a slim lens stack to enable optical 2x zoom. The whole system is also PDAF, so they need the movement anyway.

It'd be nifty if they did that, but I'm skeptical they'd introduce something like that on their new budget model.

I'd say it's a nice platform to test on before bringing it to flagship models.

Same thing with the new modem.

They did the modem because it's actually cheaper for them. They already bought the Intel division and had engineers work on it for over 5 years, so it's already sunk costs at best. Since they came up with a working design, it is FOR SURE cheaper for them to use it than to buy something from Qualcomm.

I'm a bit suspicious about this, because if it was truly great, they would have waited longer to advertise it as a must have feature for their "pro" devices.

It's sort of beta testing the thing on the lower volume product with less tech literate people who won't complain too much because of some weird connectivity issues.

If it performs, Apple is going to make even more money on the next round of iPhone, not that Apple needs any more money but you know, if that could stop them from increasing the price, that could be nice.

I wouldn’t say it’s suspicious. I think it is a good plan to get telemetry from real world usage.

Since Apple owns the whole stack, they can iterate faster too.

If it were an optical zoom then it would be able to take 24MP and 48MP shots like it can in 1x mode, but it is limited to 12MP which highly suggests its just a crop.

No, it’s literally a digital crop exactly like the other sensors that use 48MP sensors. There’s nothing magic here. I would be shocked if it’s anything different than the exact identical camera used in the base iPhone 15, quite frankly. The cheaper versions never use the latest hardware for the cameras.

Optical zoom changes significantly how out-of-focus areas looks like. For anyone doing photography (with actual cameras and actual lenses), calling crop an "optical zoom" is a lie from Apple.

If you have an actual physical zoom lens, cropping a zoomed out photo produces a different result than zooming in with the lens in the first place. Even when your camera/sensor doesn't move. It's all physics yo

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