iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max

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.

And there's no black color.

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.

99% of the time phones are on a case and used from the front screen so from where I stand I don’t care what it looks like from the back. And there is so few people using it caseless that it won’t really matter.

I was shocked how ugly it looks this time!

With the introduction of ProRes RAW and Genlock, it seems like iPhones can finally be seriously considered for professional movie capture.

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 march of incremental upgrades year over year from Apple is impressive. I do wish though that there was better competition.

28 years later was filmed using the iPhone 15 as the sensor/capture device.

Yep, their non matte black finishes reflect inside even the prosumer Elegato Teleprompter.

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.

Only a few scenes were filmed with iphones.

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.

They make great features for video creators. Too bad that those are being replaced by AI

I guess this time the pro really is for pros. The 120hz on the base model is great.

Horses for courses. Better camera (for those special moments while the kids are young) and better battery life are two big ones for me, so I'll likely upgrade. (Kind of digging the orange color too).

It's not the dullest refresh, and they always sell plenty. I'm sure this will be no exception.

I've found that the support for multiple eSIMs has replaced that pretty well for me. That's probably incredibly dependent on where you travel, though.

Yup, I'm also in Canada and travel often for work to US and various EU (+UK) countries. I've only relied on eSims for the past ~2-3 years.

The blue is pretty subdued. I guess we'll see how reflective the finish on the aluminum winds up being...

I like the orange one. It's nice that there's finally a vivid Pro color, after years of black / white / "it's not quite black or white, we swear".

IIRC, iPhones (and every other smartphone) records variable frame rate videos (VFR), whereas professional cameras can record constant frame rate videos (CFR).

I think that VFR videos need to be re-encoded into CFR videos in order to be able to work with all the footage shot by different devices. It sounds to me like with the Genlock feature, it could actually be possible to record CFR videos on an iPhone and also synchronize the iPhone with other devices so that both video and audio does not drift relative to other devices. But that's just my speculation as I couldn't find any details about the Genlock feature.

I would love to know how the team working on 28 years later handled synchronization of the multiple iPhones they were using to shoot some scenes of the movie and if they got a helping hand from Apple, which perhaps allowed them to use some internal APIs to access hidden features of the camera stack...

Moving? I can register the same sim to multiple phones.

Subjective indeed. I don't mind the broad camera bump -- it's a good trade-off for getting the increased zoom, honestly. I'm not quite sure how I feel about the differently-colored ceramic bit on the back, though. But, on the plus side, not like that's the bit of the phone I look at.

Plus, the orange looks great. (In their promo shots. We've occasionally seen these look a lot less vivid once you see them in real life.)

The focus was naturally scenes and "vibes" that couldn't be achieved with traditional films cameras. Boyle and Mantle weren't afraid to use whatever was best for the job, which included drones and other camera systems as well. More on their iPhone camera rigs for anyone who's interested:

https://www.ign.com/articles/28-years-later-danny-boyle-goes...

https://www.motionpictures.org/2025/06/how-28-years-later-dp...

https://www.wired.com/story/danny-boyle-says-shooting-on-iph...

Related: Driver POV footage for F1 was shot with Apple-created custom iPhone rigs as well.

I'm one of those people who really likes the camera features, so there's no question about which one interests me. The Pro also has a battery life estimate that's 45% longer than the Air's, which is pretty important to me. Those two things combine to be a pretty big differentiator.

EDIT: actually, base Pro is only 22% more battery life. I was accidentally comparing it to the Pro Max. Still, important.

It’s a phone, who or what are those pros that use this in a pro way? And I’m saying this as a pro owner who only got it for the camera, which I use to take casual photos

I would die for a green Pro Max. I hate how they deal with their colors, where only the consumer ones get the good colors.

I had to pull my case off to see what color iPhone I had... I'll never buy a white iPhone ever again but anything silver or dark is good with me.

Annoying they no longer use titanium. Dents be back.

put a case on it?

My iPhone 11 Pro is the green one from that year. Still a great phone, although I can feel that it's seriously memory constrained. I'm finally ready to upgrade.

Why is that? White is the best color because it absorbs the least heat when exposed in the sun.

videographers are the only pro market left.

obvious by the extra storage and additional camera features

The looks are what they are, but if that wide shelf will mean the phone doesn't wobble when placed on a table, that is a good usability improvement. One of the small things I missed when moving from a Pixel 6 to an iPhone was the ability to not feel compelled to pick it up in order to use it.

I'm personally totally fine with incremental upgrades. It already does everything I want and it lasts for like 5+ years. I'll get a new one when this one dies and then I had 5 iterations worth of new stuff.

Most of the people in my family and friends have iPhone X, 11, 12, or 13s and run at varying degrees of "dead any day now" and "completely fine" (from old to new, generally).

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.

I held on to my 11 pro for a few years extra because I didn’t want to give up that gorgeous green.

If you are just putting it in a case, white will more visibly show the accumulated grime. But the color doesn't matter as much in that scenario anyway.

I’d get the Air but I really like the 0.5x camera. I’m disappointed at how the Pros keep getting heavier.

That's right. One of the captions read 8x 12MP.

This is especially surprising to me given several providers still only support physical SIM or weird half-support (e.g. Fizz, that I'm with, allows you to open a new line with eSIM but not transfer an existing line from physical to eSIM).

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.

Related ongoing threads:

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)

> if that wide shelf will mean the phone doesn't wobble when placed on a table, that is a good usability improvement.

That's what I had hoped too, but from the images I've seen it looks like the cameras themselves bump out past the shelf far enough that it will still wobble.

What’s with the new “hideous design” thing? Pixel is incredibly ugly too. Someone isn’t thinking straight.

I never liked titanium very much, but it's better than aluminum for sure. Now back when they did stainless, that I thought was awesome and looked and felt way more premium.

> Genlock

Finally caught up to the Amiga I see

It looks like the camera lenses are still raised above the bump. Wobbles look like they remain!

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.

See: https://x.com/neilcybart/status/1965502456886100389

It's not because your work gives you the opportunity to get a new iPhone that you *need* to get one... you can also downscale the consumerism, the planet is better that way

Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. I rather like this look and design.

I always keep my phone in a case because I’m a coward but I would not want to hide this.

I think that for each variation of treatments and finishes they do, the white models tend to look dated the quickest. But I'm a case guy, and I like black carbon cases, so the contrast between white phones and carbon cases is too stark.

>The march of incremental upgrades year over year from Apple is impressive.

It is not just Apple. I can’t think of any phone maker that is releasing exciting new things.

For me, foldable and curved screen phones _could_ be that, but no implementations are. Supposedly Apple is working on both of those, so maybe they can do it right.

I agree the lack of the space grey/black/midnight/whatever you want to call it... is odd.

But uh. I can't tell you what color my phone is now. I normally buy black, but I think it's silver? Could have to peel off the dbrand skin.

I do like the orange though, it's really attractive. Next do Product Red version that is similarly bright. I miss my product red's.

It’s actually quite irritating 5x zoom, I think 3x is a more useful range for my photos.

Over the span of 30 minutes, you've made 8 comments crying for a folding iPhone in various threads.

When will you stop?

The specs page on Apple website just lists zoom factors of 1x, 2x, 4x and 8x without specifying the difference, which is misleading

I currently have a 14 Pro, and I use 3x zoom a lot. It is usually enough for my regular daily pictures, but when taking the shots during hiking trips I often find myself wishing for a greater zoom. When taking a picture of a distant mountain, or a skittish animal you don’t want to spook by coming closer

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.

I know that's /s, but I'm seriously astounded by how many great-at-video cameras come out from Sony, Canon, Nikon, et all that still don't have rudimentary features like genlock or easy timecode integration. Much less the ability to upload video clips and still frames somewhere automatically, in full resolution.

Sometimes I use my iPhone instead of my $3000 camera rig just because I can get the clip somewhere within seconds instead of the 2-3 minute rigamarole of SD card ingestion.

We're talking about an Apple iPhone Pro here. It doesn't wobble, it rocks! /s

Maybe baby will realize that duck™ tape and two iPhones gets you a folder today.

doesn't lidar help with closeup focusing?

I got lots of blurry closeups on older iphones.

It still doesn’t focus perfectly. Not convinced LiDAR helps that much

The best camera is the one you have with you.

One of the big use cases for Genlock these days is when you're doing virtual production with LED walls; you want to make sure the screen refresh of the wall is locked to the shutter of the camera. It's almost like 'vsync' in video game video settings, without it you risk seeing tearing in the backdrops.

Oh man lucky! I know they made a 13 Pro Max in green, but it was released off cycle (something like March) and I had already got the 13 Pro Max the previous October. :sob:

Looks like the esim only version has a bigger battery. I can’t tell if that’s an option in Australia because I’d absolutely opt for the bigger battery version.

Phones default tonusing Through the Lens autofocus. This is closed-loop and pretty fastthese days. Only when it's too dark work effectively do they switch to lidar/tof open loop autofocus systems.

Boo... I was worried that might be the case looking at the renders.

I've always preferred clear cases, and I notice when I get the white iPhone it definitely stays cooler (especially when used as navigation in the car).

One more year on my 13 Mini then...

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.

You have it backwards.

Most scenes were filmed with iPhones, only a few were filmed with other cameras.

What is the cutout for? Just aesthetics?

They recently fixed this. My friend switched from Fido to eSIM Fizz yesterday, and kept their existing line

> Worth the upgrade? 100 percent.

First time I noticed such claim in an iPhone announcement.

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.

If you are an existing Fizz customer with a physical SIM, is there a pathway to switching to eSIM now? Because there wasn't for a very long time.

EDIT: Huh you're right! It's now possible. Groovy!

I think it's because of the wireless charging. I.e.: as to not have aluminium in from of the MagSafe coil

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)

Apple are masters of misleading marketing.

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.

Think I’m done with Apple phones after that one.