Apple’s iPhone improvement roadmap runs a number of years into the longer term and the corporate is regularly working with suppliers on a number of successive iPhone fashions concurrently, which is why we frequently get rumored options months forward of launch. The iPhone 17 sequence isn’t any completely different, and we have already got a good suggestion of what to anticipate from Apple’s 2025 smartphone lineup.
In the event you skipped the iPhone 16, or should you’re simply plain inquisitive about what’s on the horizon, listed below are 17 rumored options that we expect to reach in time for Apple’s successor lineup, the iPhone 17 sequence, which is more likely to be launched round mid-September.
1. iPhone 17 “Air”
iPhone 17 Plus?
Apple plans to launch an all-new iPhone 17 mannequin with a “considerably thinner” design, stories The Data. The gadget, which might be referred to as “iPhone 17 Air,” will characteristic a “main redesign” that can characteristic a single rear digital camera situated on a horizontal digital camera bar working alongside the highest of the gadget, together with a narrower Dynamic Island, in response to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes the iPhone 17 Air will probably be 5.5mm thick at its thinnest level, which doubtless means it’s going to have a 5.5mm chassis with a thicker rear digital camera bump space. The gadget is rumored to have a 6.6-inch show dimension, and is more likely to change the Plus mannequin in Apple’s lineup. Different reported options embody an aluminum chassis, an A19 chip, Apple’s C1 modem, an Motion button, a Digicam Management button, and a 24MP entrance digital camera. See our iPhone 17 “Slim” rumor roundup for extra.
2. New All-Aluminum Design
All iPhone 17 Fashions
Apple is reportedly planning to deliver all its gadgets again to aluminum with the iPhone 17 lineup. The 2 flagship iPhone 17 Professional fashions will mark the return of aluminum frames to high-end iPhones for the primary time since Apple started distinguishing between Professional and non-Professional fashions. In recent times, aluminum frames have been reserved for lower-end gadgets just like the iPhone SE and iPhone 16, whereas premium fashions featured chrome steel frames till the iPhone 15 Professional, which launched a titanium chassis as a significant improve. This shift in supplies for the iPhone 17 lineup indicators a unified method, with aluminum frames set to return throughout the whole gadget vary.
3. Considerably Redesigned Digicam
iPhone 17 Professional & iPhone 17 Professional Max
This 12 months’s iPhone 17 Professional fashions may have a main redesign, particularly centering round modifications to the rear digital camera module. Apple will transfer away from the acquainted sq. digital camera bump to a particular aluminum digital camera bar that spans the gadget’s width, in response to current stories. The digital camera space would be the similar shade as the remainder of the gadget. The redesigned digital camera module just isn’t anticipated to increase to the common iPhone 17.
The gadgets are rumored to characteristic a brand new rear design combining aluminum and glass. The highest half of the again will probably be aluminum, incorporating a brand new digital camera bump created from aluminum as a substitute of the normal 3D glass. The underside half will stay glass to allow wi-fi charging. Whereas Apple has used a glass again for the reason that ‌iPhone‌ 8 and ‌iPhone‌ X in 2017, earlier ‌iPhone‌ fashions—besides the ‌iPhone‌ 3G, ‌iPhone‌ 3GS, and ‌iPhone‌ 5C—had aluminum rears. Moreover, the aluminum digital camera bump on the ‌iPhone 17‌ Professional will reportedly be bigger than in earlier fashions, in response to The Data.
4. New Show Sizes
iPhone 17 & iPhone 17 Plus
Final 12 months’s iPhone 16 Professional and iPhone 16 Professional Max acquired greater show sizes, going from 6.12- and 6.69-inches to six.27- and 6.86-inches, respectively. For 2025, Apple can also be anticipated to deliver the bigger 6.27-inch show dimension to its commonplace ‌iPhone‌ mannequin, whereas the equal “iPhone 17 Plus” mannequin (provisionally referred to as “iPhone 17 Air”) may undertake utterly new show dimensions.
5. 120Hz ProMotion (All the time-on Show)
iPhone 17 & iPhone 17 Plus
Apple intends to increase ProMotion to all iPhone fashions in 2025, permitting all fashions to ramp as much as a 120Hz refresh charge for smoother scrolling and video content material when obligatory. Beforehand, solely “Professional” fashions in Apple’s iPhone lineup have had the characteristic. Notably, ProMotion would additionally allow the show on the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 “Air” to ramp all the way down to a extra power-efficient refresh charge as little as 1Hz, permitting for an always-on show that may present the Lock Display screen’s clock, widgets, notifications, and wallpaper even when the gadget is locked.
6. Apple-Designed Wi-Fi 7 Chip
iPhone 17 Professional & iPhone 17 Professional Max
Apple’s premium 2025 fashions are anticipated to be outfitted with an Apple-designed Wi-Fi 7 chip for the primary time. Wi-Fi 7 help would enable the “Professional” fashions to ship and obtain information over the two.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands concurrently with a supported router, leading to quicker Wi-Fi speeds, decrease latency, and extra dependable connectivity. The Wi-Fi chip would additionally enable Apple to additional scale back its dependance on exterior suppliers like Broadcom, which presently provides Apple with a mixed Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip for iPhones.
7. 48MP Telephoto Lens
iPhone 17 Professional & iPhone 17 Professional Max
An upgraded 48-megapixel Telephoto lens on Apple’s premium gadgets is anticipated to be optimized to be used with Apple’s Imaginative and prescient Professional headset, though we do not how any particulars on the way it will interface with the Imaginative and prescient Professional. The upgraded Telephoto would make the iPhone 17 Professional fashions the primary iPhones to have a rear digital camera system composed totally of 48-megapixel lenses, making it able to capturing much more photographic element. The brand new Telephoto lens will provide 3.5x zoom (85mm equal) as a substitute of the 5x zoom (120mm equal) presently out there, in response to one rumor. This focal size is mostly higher suited to portraits and on a regular basis images, because it permits customers to border photographs with out having to maneuver as distant from the topic. Nevertheless, the massive shift allegedly comes from the brand new 48MP sensor, in that the additional decision permits for digital cropping to simulate longer focal lengths, providing much less high quality loss than regular digital zoom.
8. 8K Video Recording
iPhone 17 Professional & iPhone 17 Professional Max
Apple reportedly examined 8K video recording on the iPhone 16 Professional fashions, however such performance remains to be not out there. With the iPhone 17 Professional fashions anticipated to have totally 48-megapixel rear cameras, there’s a good likelihood that 8K video recording will debut on these gadgets. A number of rival smartphones presently provide 8K video recording capabilities, such because the Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely and the Google Pixel 9 Professional (by way of AI upscaling). Regardless that 8K video recording is not extensively utilized by content material creators proper now, there are nonetheless use circumstances for it. For instance, capturing 8K would enable videographers to file utilizing the Extremely Large digital camera after which crop in 50% and nonetheless obtain 4K decision. Notably, Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman in February reported that Apple plans to emphasise the iPhone 17 Professional’s improved video recording capabilities when it unveils the gadget later this 12 months, so it is fairly doable that 8K video recording will probably be one of many capabilities that Apple will tout when the brand new lineup launches.
9. 24MP Selfie Digicam
All iPhone 17 Fashions
The iPhone 17 lineup will characteristic a 24-megapixel front-facing digital camera with a six-element lens, in response to one rumor. The iPhone 14 and 15 characteristic a 12-megapixel front-facing digital camera with 5 plastic lens components, and final 12 months’s iPhone 16 lineup options the identical {hardware}. The upgraded decision to 24 megapixels on the iPhone 17 will enable pictures to take care of their high quality even when cropped or zoomed in, whereas the bigger variety of pixels will seize finer particulars. The improve to a six-element lens also needs to barely improve picture high quality.
10. Scratch Resistant Anti-Reflective Show
All iPhone 17 Fashions
The iPhone 17 will characteristic an anti-reflective show that’s extra scratch-resistant than Apple’s Ceramic Defend discovered on iPhone 15 fashions, in response to one rumor, though the brand new iPhone 16 Professional fashions do have the latest-generation Ceramic Defend, which has a sophisticated formulation that’s 2x more durable than glass on another smartphone. The outer glass on the iPhone 17 is alleged to have a “super-hard anti-reflective layer” that’s “extra scratch-resistant.” It is not clear whether or not Apple is planning to undertake the Gorilla Glass Armor that Samsung makes use of in its Galaxy S24 Extremely, however the description of Corning’s newest expertise matches the rumor.
11. Extra Reminiscence
iPhone 17 Professional & iPhone 17 Professional Max
At the least one mannequin in Apple’s iPhone 17 lineup will include 12GB. Jeff Pu of funding agency Haitong has claimed that each Professional fashions will include the upped RAM, whereas Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes solely the iPhone 17 Professional Max will characteristic 12GB. In distinction, one other dependable supply has claimed that each one iPhone 17 fashions may have 12GB of RAM. For comparability, the usual iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus have 6GB of RAM, and the iPhone 15 Professional fashions have 8GB of RAM, whereas all iPhone 16 fashions have 8GB of RAM. Any such improve would enable for improved multitasking on the iPhone, in addition to present extra assets for Apple Intelligence options that require large-language fashions to be resident in reminiscence.
12. Smaller Dynamic Island
iPhone 17 Professional Max
Apple’s highest-end 2025 iPhone will characteristic a considerably narrower Dynamic Island, due to the gadget’s adoption of a smaller “metalens” for the Face ID system, claims Haitong’s Jeff Pu and a Chinese language leaker. Whereas a standard iPhone digital camera has curved lenses that redirect mild in the direction of the picture sensor, a metalens is a skinny and flat lens with microscopic patterns etched onto it that may focus mild extra exactly. Assuming this leads to a narrowed Dynamic Island, it could be the primary time that Apple has modified the characteristic because it debuted on the iPhone 14 Professional in 2022.
13. A19 Processor
All iPhone 17 Fashions
Apple usually upgrades iPhones with quicker and extra environment friendly chip expertise every year. Whereas we aren’t anticipating the iPhone 17 sequence to get TSMC’s next-generation 2-nanometer chips, Apple’s A19 chip expertise is more likely to be constructed on an upgraded 3-nanometer course of. The iPhone 17 Professional and iPhone 17 Professional Max are anticipated to incorporate an A19 Professional chip, whereas the iPhone 17 and the iPhone 17 Air may have the usual A19 chip. TSMC is engaged on its N3P course of, with mass manufacturing set to start in late 2024, so that is the chip expertise that we’re anticipating Apple will use for the iPhone 17 lineup. In comparison with earlier variations of 3nm chips, the N3P chips provide elevated efficiency effectivity and elevated transistor density.
14. Customized Wi-Fi & Bluetooth Chip
All iPhone 17 Fashions
Apple is switching over to a brand new Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chip that it designed in-house beginning in 2025. The mixed Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chip will change iPhone elements from Broadcom, permitting Apple to cut back its reliance on the corporate. Apple’s Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chip is distinct from the C1 modem chip that Apple just lately debuted within the new iPhone 16e, however finally, Apple needs to mix these right into a single part. The brand new Wi-Fi chip signifies that all 4 iPhone 17 fashions will help Wi-Fi 7 chip, in response to Jeff Pu, an analyst who covers firms inside Apple’s provide chain.
15. New Thermal Design
All iPhone 17 Fashions
The iPhone 17 lineup will characteristic a vapor chamber heatsink to enhance thermal efficiency, in response to one report. Vapor chamber expertise is already utilized in many high-end Android gadgets. Vapor chambers work by spreading warmth evenly throughout a bigger floor space, stopping thermal throttling and sustaining constant efficiency, which is especially helpful in slim gadgets. The report claims that the each mannequin within the iPhone 17 sequence will undertake the improved thermal warmth spreader.
16. Reverse Wi-fi Charging
iPhone 17 Professional & iPhone 17 Professional Max
Apple has reportedly examined a wi-fi reverse charging characteristic for its upcoming iPhone 17 Professional fashions that may make the iPhone able to delivering energy to different Apple gadgets, in response to the Weibo-based leaker Prompt Digital. The Chinese language leaker claims that Apple is testing a 7.5W wi-fi charging characteristic for iPhone 17 Professional fashions, and it might be used to cost different Apple equipment like AirPods, Apple Watch, or doubtlessly an upcoming MagSafe Battery Pack.
17. Bigger Battery
iPhone 17 Professional Max
Apple is alleged to have elevated the depth of the iPhone 17 Professional Max to eight.725mm, up from 8.25mm on the iPhone 16 Professional Max, which might be a 0.475mm distinction in thickness. The rise “absolutely means a bigger battery,” in response to one leaker. Aside from depth, the iPhone 17 Professional Max’s body reportedly stays unchanged, and is in any other case similar to the iPhone 16 Professional Max.
