With the iPhone 17 Air, which has many of the Pro features that typically accompany the Pro model to differentiate it from the base model, in addition to the base model getting the marquee features of the Pro models such as the 120Hz/Always On Display, the Pro is very poorly differentiated unless you really make use of the three cameras.
I thought of upgrading my 3 year old pro, but seeing this there is no reason to. Apple Intelligence is nowhere to be found, extra camera is nice but this design... Oh my god, I know this is subjective, but this is really ugly.
Surprising there’s no matte-black iPhone 17 Pro - dark, low-reflectance finishes are standard in pro video kit because they minimise specular reflections and stray highlights; keeping a shiny silver finish and skipping a subdued matte black feels like a strange choice and undercuts the “Pro” claim.
The lack of a black iPhone 17 Pro... has me dumbfounded. I might skip this year.
I'm really happy with the camera features, but there's less differentiation between base iPhone 17 and 17 Pro this go-round. Probably enough for me to still get the Pro, but the iPhone 17 is looking like a pretty cool option this year.
They're removing black to force people to either upgrade, or make it painfully obvious to their peers that they're using an old phone. That's what you do when there is nothing new in your phone this year. Status signaling and fashion.
Or it could be like the white iPhone 4... delayed because of problems with the finish.
It's obvious to anyone given the radical new design that you have an iPhone 16 Pro or not. That's not the reason for removing black. They'd have removed silver for the same reason if it was.
Boo, hiss. No more physical SIM support in Canada. I tried to go eSim only, but moving an eSim from one phone to another is a huge PITA and something I do regularly for travel.
Looks like “8x” zoom on the new Pro model is actually 4x optical plus extra 2x by pixel binning on the 48MP sensor, compared with 5x optical on the last year’s model.
It is, but I don’t think this a bad offering - up until recently all iPhone cameras were 12mp, so you still get “good enough to print” quality. I guess it’s a bit of marketing speak but I don’t mind - to me it seems they made good choices on the lenses this year. 5x always seemed a bit too much without something in between but hopefully 4x is a decent compromise while still enabling “8x” (which I suspect is important for marketing and honestly will be quite fun)
I get a new iPhone as a work phone bi-yearly, and get to pick the model, with co-pay for anything above the most basic one (currently 16E). In a month or so, it'll be that time again.
Last time I went with the non-Pro option was 6 years ago with the 11. Back then I regretted it, it was a clear downgrade from my previous iPhone X (which I consider the first "Pro" iPhone) - largely because of the screen, 11's LCD really wasn'g great after the X's AMOLED. Since then, I've had the 13 Pro and 15 Pro, both have been great, even though both are a bit weak in the battery department. Now I'm again considering the base 17.
Not interested in the Air or the 17 Pro Max, and the 17 Pro doesn't really seem like it's worth the extra cost to me, since the base model seems really good this time around. At a glance, the things you get with the 17 Pro for extra 350€ (German pricing) are:
- Unibody, but same aluminum material
- Same size, same _exact_ screen (all specs match)
- A19 Pro chip vs A19 - relevant for gaming (I don't) or other highly intensive applications (video editing I guess? again, not something I do a lot of)
- Better camera system - arguably the only relevant thing for a daily driver here
- LiDAR - very limited usefulness, in my experience having it on the 15 Pro
- USB 3 with 10 Gbit speeds vs USB 2 speeds on the USB-C port - relevant if you transfer large files like ProRes video, for me it's basically only when doing local backups to the Mac to install iOS betas, so largely irrelevant
- 31 hours battery life vs 30 - marginal difference
- Same charging, connectivity, everything else really
Will likely end up visiting an Apple Store to fiddle with both options, and look at the co-pay prices that our company will offer, then decide. But so far, it's much less of a clear Pro choice than it was in the previous years.
The year of the 11 lineup was the one year where the standard iPhone <LATEST_NUMBER> was a clear downgrade from last year's. It was a refresh of the iPhone XR from the previous year, which was the budget option compared to the flagship XS.
Kind of surprised by how ugly the pro looks. I can deal with wide the "plateau", but that cutout looks bad. If I were to buy one it'd be the first phone I keep in a case.
Fine with the orange color 'flavour of the month' scheme on this page but what's with that mega PRO logo text in your face at the top? Take it easy pickup truck. Off brand.
Liquid Glass design + This lineup is a middle-finger to ergonomics and accessibility.
I just want a non distractive phone with good battery life. E-Paper screen, compact format, yet still great cameras - maybe LoRa capability for Meshtastic / Meshcore, embedded swiss army knife.
I regret “upgrading” from iPhone 12 to 16. Ended up spending over $1k on a separate camera because the iPhone 16’s is so much worse it ruined my favorite hobby of taking scenery photos while cycling.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 57.5 ms ] threadAnd there's no black color.
I'm really happy with the camera features, but there's less differentiation between base iPhone 17 and 17 Pro this go-round. Probably enough for me to still get the Pro, but the iPhone 17 is looking like a pretty cool option this year.
It's obvious to anyone given the radical new design that you have an iPhone 16 Pro or not. That's not the reason for removing black. They'd have removed silver for the same reason if it was.
Last time I went with the non-Pro option was 6 years ago with the 11. Back then I regretted it, it was a clear downgrade from my previous iPhone X (which I consider the first "Pro" iPhone) - largely because of the screen, 11's LCD really wasn'g great after the X's AMOLED. Since then, I've had the 13 Pro and 15 Pro, both have been great, even though both are a bit weak in the battery department. Now I'm again considering the base 17.
Not interested in the Air or the 17 Pro Max, and the 17 Pro doesn't really seem like it's worth the extra cost to me, since the base model seems really good this time around. At a glance, the things you get with the 17 Pro for extra 350€ (German pricing) are:
- Unibody, but same aluminum material
- Same size, same _exact_ screen (all specs match)
- A19 Pro chip vs A19 - relevant for gaming (I don't) or other highly intensive applications (video editing I guess? again, not something I do a lot of)
- Better camera system - arguably the only relevant thing for a daily driver here
- LiDAR - very limited usefulness, in my experience having it on the 15 Pro
- USB 3 with 10 Gbit speeds vs USB 2 speeds on the USB-C port - relevant if you transfer large files like ProRes video, for me it's basically only when doing local backups to the Mac to install iOS betas, so largely irrelevant
- 31 hours battery life vs 30 - marginal difference
- Same charging, connectivity, everything else really
Will likely end up visiting an Apple Store to fiddle with both options, and look at the co-pay prices that our company will offer, then decide. But so far, it's much less of a clear Pro choice than it was in the previous years.
Compare the New iPhone Models - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45186294 - Sept 2025 (95 comments)
Apple Debuts iPhone 17 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45186023 - Sept 2025 (104 comments)
iPhone Air - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45186015 - Sept 2025 (431 comments)
See: https://x.com/neilcybart/status/1965502456886100389
Liquid Glass design + This lineup is a middle-finger to ergonomics and accessibility.
I just want a non distractive phone with good battery life. E-Paper screen, compact format, yet still great cameras - maybe LoRa capability for Meshtastic / Meshcore, embedded swiss army knife.
First time I noticed such claim in an iPhone announcement.
Think I’m done with Apple phones after that one.