What this means is that in the future, Apple could have an iPhone that will feature a pretty impressive optical zoom, similar to Huawei’s 5x zoom. For those wondering, there is a difference between digital and optical zoom. With digital, it is essentially cropping the photo to zoom in on the subject.
However, with optical zoom, it uses the lens to actually zoom into the subject, which in theory should result in better quality images as the details will not be lost as the lens zooms into the subject. At the moment, Apple’s iPhones are only capable of 2x optical zoom and 10x digital zoom, so this will be quite a marked improvement.
We’re not sure why Apple is waiting so long to introduce the feature, especially since it has been available on Android phones since last year already, but we suppose better late than never. Take it with a grain of salt for now, but if an iPhone with 5x optical zoom is something you might be interested in, it looks like you’ll be in for a wait.