Leaker Majin Bu, who has accurately shared some details of upcoming iPhones in the past, has posted a new article with a little more information about the telephoto camera on the upcoming iPhone 17 Pro. As with the current iPhone lineup, only the Pro models are expected to feature the telephoto camera.
According to his latest intel, the telephoto camera will feature a new 48MP sensor—that part has been reported before by several analysts. What is new is the detail about the focal length. Instead of a 5x zoom (120mm) as on the iPhone 16 Pro models, or the 3x zoom (77mm) of some previous models, the 48MP telephoto on the iPhone 17 Pro will feature a 3.5x zoom (85mm).
This is a little more natural zoom for taking portrait shots, one of the benefits of the less-zoomy 3x telephoto lens on older iPhone Pro models.
But, just as Apple does with the main 48MP sensor today, it will allow for a 2x crop zoom using just the center 12 megapixels of the sensor. So the iPhone 17 Pro will also be able to take 7x (160mm) 12MP shots with perfect optical clarity. Of course, digital zoom will extend the range beyond that.
So that’s the new detail here: The telephoto camera on the next iPhone Pro model will jump from a 12MP 5x camera to a 48MP 3.5x camera with a 2x “optical crop zoom” capability as the current iPhones can do with their 48MP wide camera today.
The iPhone 17 Pro is expected to arrive at an event in September alongside a new member of the iPhone lineup, the iPhone 17 Air. Stay tuned to all the latest rumors with our iPhone 17 superguide.
Maybe you didn’t realize this, but Microsoft is actually older than Apple. While Apple marked its 49th anniversary earlier this week on April 1, Microsoft will celebrate its 50th anniversary on April 4. To commemorate the event, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has posted the source code for Microsoft’s first-ever product, Altair BASIC.
The story of the product begins with the computer credited with starting the personal computer revolution, the MITS Altair 8800. (Yeah yeah yeah, I know what you’re thinking, “What about the Apple II? I thought this was Macworld!” Even PCWorld said it’s the greatest PC of all time!) But the Altair 8800 has a unique place in history. When it was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, enthusiasts everywhere were excited about its potential, including Bill Gates and Paul Allen, then students at Harvard.
Popular Electronics
Gates and Allen thought that the Altair 8800 was a sign that the “PC revolution was imminent,” as Gates puts it. They decided to create a version of BASIC that can run on the Altair–BASIC, for you young whippersnappers who pay too much attention to those darn TokToks or whatever you call ’em, is a computer language designed for people with, in Gates’s words, “no computer experience.” BASIC on an Altair 8800 would widen the device’s market and bring personal computing one step closer to the masses.
Gates details some of the things they had to do to make Altair BASIC a real product, including not having actual access to the Intel 8080 chip that was in the Altair 8800, how to handle memory limitations (you thought 8GB was diddly squat, try 256 bytes!), and rushing to make a tight deadline. Eventually, they entered a licensing agreement with MITS, and Micro-Soft (the name originally had a hyphen) was born.
As the story goes, Steve Wozniak saw the Altair 8800 running Gates’ BASIC at a meeting of the Homebrew Electronics Club. However, the Intel chip was too expensive, so he wrote a new version of Gates’ Altair BASIC for the cheaper Motorola 6800 chip, which became the Apple I with the help of a guy named Steve Jobs. A few years later, they released the greatest PC of all time, the Apple II, and well, you probably know the rest. If you don’t, here’s a recap.
But back to Microsoft. The Altair BASIC source code is available as a PDF download, covering 157 pages. Gates is “super proud of how it turned out,” and considering what Altair BASIC led to, he should be. If you are a developer or a computer geek, it’s worth a look. If you’re interested in learning more about Bill Gates before Microsoft, read his autobiography, Source Code: My Beginnings.
Microsoft/Bill Gates
Yes, yes, we know that MacBooks usually have great battery life, but does it ever hurt to have a backup power bank in your backpack? This 20,000mAh Baseus Blade model is powerful, fast, and nearly half-off at Amazon today. That means that instead of paying $100 for this handy battery, you can get it for $53, its lowest price yet.
I personally use the slightly thinner but less powerful Blade 2 model, which I absolutely adore, so you can be assured that the larger model performs just as well. Plus it has even better specs, with a much bigger capacity (20,000mAh as opposed to 12,000mAh) and more power (100W vs. Blade 2’s 65W). Since this power bank has enough oomph to charge your MacBook (or any other laptop), it can also juice up smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, earbuds, and even handheld consoles.
There are two USB-C and two USB-A ports on this power bank, so you can charge multiple devices at once (though the power to each port will drop). The power bank’s display delivers information about the remaining battery, charging power for each port, and the estimated charging time left so you’ll know what you’re getting. And since it supports passthrough charging you can keep the Blade powered up while it juices up other devices.
The Baseus Blade is a fantastic way to recharge your devices on the go, especially at its sale price of just $53. But it won’t stick around forever, so it’s best to hurry up and add it to your cart.
Get the Baseus Blade power bank for hearly half offIf there’s a marquee feature for iOS 18.4, it’s the expansion of Apple Intelligence into the EU, along with Vision Pro compatibility and new language support for French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. That’s tens of millions of iPhone 16 owners who can finally use the feature Apple says the newest iPhones were “built for.” (However, we should point out that this release does not enable Phone Mirroring on Macs in the EU due to issues over Digital Markets Act compliance.)
For everyone else, there isn’t one standout feature. Rather, iOS 18.4 brings lots of little tweaks, improvements, and changes. Maybe one will stand out for you as the thing you’ve been waiting for, or maybe the sum of them taken together just makes your iPhone a little more pleasant to use. Here’s a by-no-means-complete list of the little things you may come to appreciate about this update.
Visual Intelligence can be triggered in the Control Center or the Action Button. This makes it available on the iPhone 15 Pro, and it means you can add the control to your lock screen.
If you’ve got AirPods Max, you’re getting an upgrade (via a firmware update) to allow audio over USB-C, which will include 24-bit, 48 kHz lossless audio and ultra-low-latency audio.
If you’re a CarPlay user, you’ll appreciate the new third row of app icons on the home screen (if your display size is large enough) and a new API for sporting events will allow for custom experiences during live sporting broadcasts.
Speaking of driving, Apple Maps will now include the location of NACS chargers (that’s the so-called “Tesla connector” appearing on many new EVs).
Got a Vision Pro? Along with support for Apple Intelligence on the headset, there’s a new Vision Pro iPhone app that lets you discover spatial experiences, download apps and games, and get tips.
If you’re a fan of making Shortcuts, you’ll love that there are now lots of Shortcut options to change app settings. So you can make apps behave differently based on location or time of day or whatever, if you’re good at making Shortcuts.
You’ll notice that Safari now shows recent searches when you select the search/address bar, making it easy to repeat that search you just did earlier today. You can clear this at will, or prevent it from showing at all by going to Settings > Safari > Show recent searches.
Foundry
There are several tweaks to Control Center. Buttons that have more options when you select them show chevrons, the cellular data toggle shows real signal strength, and so on.
There are new controls, too, including four options for Ambient Music: Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing. Each one has multiple playlist options or you can select one of your playlists. Because they’re Control Center controls, you can add them to the lock screen or trigger them with the Action Button, too.
Foundry
There’s an all-new Apple Intelligence feature: Prioritize Notifications. Go to Settings > Notifications > Prioritize Notifications to enable or disable it, and you can select which apps it works with. When enabled, AI will try to determine if a notification is especially important and show it to you in a separate group on top of all your other notifications.
Foundry
Tweaks to the Photos app include a new “Key Photo” view mode for your Albums, two new filters for viewing your Photos library (Shared With You and Not in an Album), and the ability to edit the order of the Media Types list. Finally, I can select Screenshots without swiping three pages over!
Foundry
Image Playground is still a pretty bad experience, but at least it now has the Sketch style that was demonstrated back at WWDC. For certain kinds of drawings, it’s the best choice.
We all love emojis, and there are seven new ones in iOS 18.4: Face with bags under eyes, Fingerprint, Harp, Leafless tree, Root vegetable, Shovel, and Splatter.
If you’re an Apple News+ subscriber you’ll want to check out the new Food section, which does an excellent job presenting recipes from popular food publications. Look under the Following tab to find the Food section. Note that this is not yet available in the Apple News app on Macs.
You know how you can set up a new iPhone or iPad by bringing another iPhone or iPad near it? Well, now that works for setting up a new Mac, too! You’ll need to update the Mac to macOS 15.4 or later, of course.
To update your iPhone to iOS 18.4, head over to the Settings app, then tap General, Sofware Update, and follow the prompts.
With the fear of tariffs overtaking the U.S., Verizon on Thursday announced a new “three-year price lock guarantee on all myPlan and myHome network plans.” Verizon says the guarantee ensures your core monthly plan price for calling, data, and texting won’t change until at least 2028.
On the surface, that sounds like a good deal. There isn’t a commitment to stay for three years and the guarantee automatically applies to all existing myPlan customers, which is basically anyone who’s signed up in the past couple of years. Additionally, customers can get a free phone (which varies depending on the plan) with any trade-in of an Apple, Google, or Samsung handset in any condition.
But the price lock guarantee isn’t all that guaranteed. The deal only applies to the “then-current base monthly rate for your talk, text, and data,” and “excludes taxes, fees, surcharges, additional plan discounts or promotions, and third-party services.” That basically ensures that you’ll be paying more for your phone plan in three years, even if the base monthly rate stays the same.
For example, in February, Verizon added a $3 per line increase for myPlan customers with five or more lines and 20 cents per line to the Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge in January. Those very clearly fall under the category of a fee or surcharge.
So go grab your free phone, but don’t expect to pay the same plan rate today as you will in April 2028, no matter what Verizon guarantees.
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