Apple Prepares iPhone Air 2 Camera Upgrade: Big Photo Boost Ahead
iPhone Air 2 may bring 48MP ultrawide camera and zoom features. Discover how Apple plans to improve photography on ultra-slim iPhones.
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Despite the small internal structure of the device, Apple is allegedly going to be making a significant upgrade to the camera system of the iPhone Air 2. Next, a 48MP ultrawide-angle camera is rumored to be incorporated in the new model to elevate the quality of both photography and video.
The dream of adding telephoto had been on the card for a while just like the iPhone Air but it seems such an upgrade might be held back because of the miniaturization of the gadget and the limitations imposed on the hardware.
The digital zooming feature is primarily based on cropping the image from the 48MP main sensor to offer optical-equivalent zoom levels of 1x and 2x. The same quality of the picture or even better is maintained at moderate zoom ranges, but no separate lens is used.
ETNews reports that Apple is going to stick to this method with the Air 2 but at the same time it is going to work hard to come up with an even more sophisticated digital zoom technology. Korean media confirmed this and stated that the outlet clarified the source of the information.
The experts say the main problem with the telephoto lens for iPhone Air 2 is the meager space inside the device. To add the optical hardware, the frame would have to be made thicker, a switch that Apple is not ready to make. The iPhone 17 series, on the other, hand does not come with a tetraprism lens and provides only wide and ultrawide camera options.
The iPhone Air's 48MP Fusion sensor crops a 12MP area to perform digital cropping, thereby producing a zoomed-in photo that is not physically altered. Consequently, one can have an arbitrary optical-like zoom of up to 2x before the image quality starts to degrade noticeably.
On the other hand, the telephoto lenses of the Apple iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are equipped with a tetraprism that allows for 5x lossless optical zoom. The zoom of the Air 2 might not be as powerful, but the improvements to Apple’s ISP due to the upcoming A20 and A20 Pro chips are expected to have a substantial impact on image quality. The release of these chips is anticipated for late 2026.
It is likely that Apple’s Air 2 would continue to be as slim as its predecessor and yet offer significant camera upgrades, the ultrawide function, the digital zoom improvements, and the ISP upgrade coming could be a huge leap for the photography on very thin iPhones.
