The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max top our list of the best camera phones, yet despite that there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
These handsets can capture sharp details and natural colors across their lenses, but there are some gaps in their arsenal. So there’s plenty we’d like to see from the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max.
Below, you’ll find a list of five of the camera upgrades we most want to see. These aren’t necessarily things that have been rumored (though some have been), but they’re things that would massively improve Apple’s already impressive smartphone cameras.
1. More megapixels for the periscope camera
With the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, Apple upgraded the ultra-wide cameras to 48MP sensors, up from 12MP on the previous models, but it kept the periscope cameras at 12MP.
Given that these phones also have 48MP main sensors, the 12MP periscope sensors are very much the odd ones out, and could do with more megapixels. So we’d like to see them boosted – ideally to 48MP or above – on the iPhone 17 Pro series.
Unlike some of the wishes on this list, this one is looking likely, with multiple sources suggesting that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max will have 48MP periscope cameras.
2. A variable zoom or an extra zoom lens
Another improvement we want from the zoom lens is the ability to optically zoom to multiple different distances. This could either be achieved with a single lens that can move between zoom levels, or by adding an additional telephoto camera, like you’ll find on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.
This hasn’t been rumored, so we’re not actually expecting it to happen. But it would be great if the iPhone 17 Pro series could zoom to around 10x, as well as having the shorter distance 5x zoom found on the current models.
That, paired with the 2x optical-quality shots that the main camera is already capable of, would mean you’d have a lot of different focal lengths covered.
3. Better AI editing tools
Right now, Apple’s AI capabilities are way behind rivals, with Apple Intelligence not doing much to live up to its name, and nowhere is that clearer than in AI photo editing tools.
We pitted the Clean Up tool in Apple Intelligence against similar Samsung Galaxy AI features, and the results speak for themselves – while Galaxy AI is impressively capable of doing major image edits, and in particular removing unwanted elements, Clean Up leaves photos looking messier than they started.
So, with the iPhone 17 Pro series, we’d love to see big improvements to Apple’s AI photo editing capabilities.
This may come more down to software updates than hardware (though the extra horsepower of the iPhone 17 Pro probably won’t hurt), and on that front we’re not super hopeful that these phones will have majorly improved AI out of the box, with Apple’s next major software event reportedly set to be a letdown for AI. But maybe by next year Apple will start competing.
4. Larger sensors
We mentioned above that we’d like to see more megapixels in one of the iPhone 17 Pro’s cameras, but megapixels are just one part of the picture. What’s arguably more important is a larger sensor, as a larger sensor can improve image quality and capture more light, so photos taken in low-light conditions come out better.
So, we’d like to see bigger sensors used on any or – better yet – all of the iPhone 17 Pro’s and iPhone 17 Pro Max’s cameras.
However, no reports so far suggest that will happen, and in fact oddly we’ve heard that the main camera on the iPhone 17 Pro series might actually have a smaller sensor than on the current models. That would seem odd though, and we certainly hope a sensor size decrease won’t happen.
5. An upgraded front-facing camera
As well as the periscope camera, the front-facing camera on the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max also feels a little lacking.
This too is just 12MP, and it hasn’t been upgraded since the iPhone 14 Pro, where the changes were minimal anyway. In fact, there hasn’t been an increase in megapixels since the iPhone 11 Pro. So we’d really like to see an increase in megapixels for the iPhone 17 Pro series.
Fortunately, it looks like we may well get one, with leaks suggesting the whole iPhone 17 series will have 24MP front-facing cameras.
