iPhone 17 Air’s camera problem may not matter as much as I thought

This fall, Apple is launching a new ultra-thin iPhone 17 Air that could prove especially compelling. The new model will have some shortcomings though, including only a single rear camera. But thanks to a little fact-finding exercise, I now know that won’t matter as much to me as I’d initially feared.

iPhone 17 Air will only have one rear camera

Apple’s flagship iPhones have boasted multiple rear cameras for a very long time.

The first dual-camera setup launched with the iPhone 7 Plus in 2016—nearly a full decade ago.

Since then, having two or more cameras on the back of the iPhone has become standard.

But when the iPhone 17 Air arrives, it will have only a single rear camera.

Both the Ultra Wide and Telephoto lenses of the iPhone Pro models will be gone, leaving only the single Main ‘Fusion’ camera.

As excited as I am for the iPhone 17 Air’s ultra-thin, futuristic new design, I’ve been a little worried about the camera situation.

So I did a little research.

I wanted to know: how many Ultra Wide and Telephoto photos have I taken recently?

Apple’s Photos app unfortunately doesn’t make this easy to find out. There are no special albums that collect images from each of the iPhone’s different rear cameras.

But a simple manual count didn’t take long.

I learned that out of my last 50 photos:

• 4 were Telephoto
• 0 Ultra Wide
• 46 used the Main camera

This was honestly about what I’d expected, if not a little low for Telephoto.

First, I always knew that losing the Ultra Wide didn’t really matter to me. I almost never use it.

And I thought the Telephoto number would be low, but four out of 50 was a little lower than I’d expected. I would have guessed maybe 8.

So I kept counting, and the numbers kept shrinking.

Out of my next 100 photos, not a single one was Telephoto or Ultra Wide.

Then I counted another 100 before drawing my conclusions.

With my last 250 photos counted, the results were:

• 7 Telephoto
• 3 Ultra Wide
• 240 Main

That seemed like a good place to stop counting, because the data was clear.

iPhone 17 Air’s camera won’t be the problem I expected

It seems my iPhone 16 Pro Max’s extra cameras are largely extraneous.

Out of the Telephoto photos I took, there were only a couple I would miss if I hadn’t been able to capture them. None of the Ultra Wide photos would be missed.

I know I’ve used the Telephoto lens more on vacations, and expect to miss it a bit then, but in everyday life I clearly don’t use it. At least to nowhere near the same extent as the Main camera.

Will Apple introduce some fancy new camera features on the iPhone 17 Pro that make me reconsider? Possibly. But based on what I know now, I feel a lot more comfortable saying the iPhone 17 Air is for me.

Do you take many Telephoto or Ultra Wide photos? Let us know in the comments.

Top image credit: iDeviceHelp

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