Daring Fireball: Extremely-Broad 0.5x Lenses Have Utility Past ‘Images’

Some follow-up ideas on my earlier piece, concerning the second-gen iPhone Air’s extra digicam lens being a 0.5× ultra-wide, not a 3× or 4× telephoto:

Ultimately, it’s the truth that I take advantage of my 0.5× lens not a lot for pictures however for scanning paperwork and notes, and taking “What is this?” pictures of issues in my hand, that explains its utility in comparison with a telephoto. I consider pictures as that means, roughly, “I’m trying to capture an aesthetically pleasing image that I intend to keep in perpetuity, to enjoy and remember for years to come.”

A telephoto is barely good for pictures, in that sense. The ultra-wide lens is a software with extra utility past capturing pictures you wish to preserve in any inventive or emotional sense. You can all the time grit your enamel and use digital zoom in the event you don’t have a telephoto, however you may’t pretend going wider or, importantly, nearer. The minimal focal distance of the iPhone 17 Pro 1× lens is 20 cm. The minimal focal distance of the iPhone Air 1× lens is 15 cm. Those additional 5 cm make a distinction, however the iPhone Pro’s 0.5× lens has a minimal focal distance of simply 2 cm. It can deal with just about something you place in entrance of it. The iPhone Air’s 1× lens can’t try this. With Apple Intelligence and Siri AI, taking macro pictures of objects and textual content, merely to ask Siri or one other chatbot about them, is more and more necessary.

One reader, who beforehand owned iPhone Pro fashions, however purchased an Air final 12 months, emailed to say: “It would be nice to have the telephoto; it’s annoying not having the ultra wide. When I was buying it I thought I’d miss the telephoto but actually it’s the other way around. If they add ultra wide it will be an instant upgrade for me.”

I believe that sentiment sums it up.

★ Monday, 22 June 2026