iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max

https://www.apple.com/iphone-17-pro/

70•meetpateltech•5h ago

Comments

minimaxir•5h ago

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.

cpuguy83•3h ago

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

mns•2h ago

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

abletonlive•2h ago

videographers are the only pro market left.

obvious by the extra storage and additional camera features

cpuguy83•1h ago

The best camera is the one you have with you.

kemayo•2h ago

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.

orionsbelt•2h ago

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

elAhmo•4h ago

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.

shinycode•4h ago

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.

auadix•4h ago

I was shocked how ugly it looks this time!

billti•3h ago

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.

kemayo•3h ago

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.)

saynay•2h ago

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.

jamesbvaughan•2h ago

> 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.

zozbot234•1h ago

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

will_walker•2h ago

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

semidror•3h ago

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

PUSH_AX•3h ago

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

Schiendelman•3h ago

Only a few scenes were filmed with iphones.

CharlesW•3h ago

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.

semidror•3h ago

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...

evo•1h ago

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.

foobarian•2h ago

> Genlock

Finally caught up to the Amiga I see

geerlingguy•1h ago

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.

kingsleyopara•3h ago

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.

Terretta•3h ago

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

kemayo•3h ago

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

mfkp•2h ago

put a case on it?

cadamsdotcom•3h ago

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

jjice•2h ago

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).

LeafItAlone•2h ago

>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.

johncalvinyoung•3h ago

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.

kemayo•3h ago

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".

browningstreet•2h ago

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.

vostrocity•2h ago

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

jacobr1•2h ago

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.

browningstreet•2h ago

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.

ShakataGaNai•2h ago

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.

AlexandrB•3h ago

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.

kemayo•3h ago

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.

Insanity•3h ago

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.

eptcyka•3h ago

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

amilios•2h ago

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).

Gigachad•43m ago

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.

seydor•3h ago

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

baby•2h ago

We just wanted a folding iPhone.

meindnoch•2h ago

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

When will you stop?

bombcar•1h ago

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

apple4ever•2h ago

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.

pohl•2h ago

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.

JSR_FDED•2h ago

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

apple4ever•1h ago

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:

sonu27•2h ago

Annoying they no longer use titanium. Dents be back.

olex•2h ago

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.

shantara•2h ago

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.

msie•2h ago

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

shantara•2h ago

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

andy_ppp•2h ago

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

shantara•2h ago

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

olex•2h ago

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.

oulipo2•2h ago

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

m463•1h ago

doesn't lidar help with closeup focusing?

I got lots of blurry closeups on older iphones.

jonplackett•1h ago

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

NathanielK•18m ago

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.

dang•2h ago

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)

binary132•2h ago

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

strongpigeon•2h ago

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

LeafItAlone•2h ago

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.

ChrisArchitect•2h ago

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.

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