Apple announced the iPhone 17 at its Sept. 9 event.
The phone sports a design nearly identical to last year’s iPhone, but in new, more subtle colours: Black, Lavender, Mist Blue, Sage, and White.
The iPhone 17 also has the same size 6.3-inch display, but this year the iPhone 17 boasts ProMotion, enabling variable refresh rate from 1Hz to 120Hz. It’s also brighter with up to 3,000 nits peak brightness and sports glare resistance.
Apple also unveiled Ceramic Glass 2, boosting the durability of the iPhone 17 screen. It’s three times more resistance to scratches than before.
iPhone 17 runs on the 3nm A19 chip with an updated display engine, improved Neural Engine, and higher memory bandwidth. Apple says these changes will enable on-device large language models (LLMs) to run faster. The GPU also got a boost, making it 20 per cent faster than last year. Combined with ProMotion, games should feel even smoother than before.
Though Apple didn’t mention it during the iPhone 17 section of the keynote, it also sports the company’s new N1 networking chip, enabling Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread support. Speaking of connectivity, the iPhone 17 in Canada will only offer eSIM, a first for the Canadian models.
The new iPhone also boasts faster charging, enabling a 50 per cent charge in 20 minutes with supported high-wattage USB-C chargers, such as Apple’s 40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max.
Apple also brought more improvements to Apple Intelligence, with features like Visual Intelligence.
The company claims that the iPhone 17’s new ProMotion display allows for up to eight hours more video playback than the iPhone 16.
The camera system also received small upgrades. The main 48-megapixel Fusion camera, which uses sensor cropping for what Apple calls ‘optical quality’ 2x zoom. The ultrawide camera also got a boost to 48-megapixels.
Around front, the selfie camera got an upgrade with ‘Centre Stage.’ It has a wider field of view with a larger, square sensor, enabling more photo options without forcing people to rotate the phone. For example, users can now get landscape shots while holding the iPhone vertically.
Centre Stage will automatically expand the field of view and rotate the frame as people join the photo. Apple says the upgrades will boost video with Action Mode-like video stabilization. Plus, the upgraded selfie camera supports 4K HDR video capture and Dual Capture for filming with both front and rear cameras at the same time. The selfie camera can put out up to 18-megapixel shots.
The iPhone 17 starts at 256GB of storage, double the iPhone 16’s base storage, and has a starting price of $1,129, unchanged from last year. Pre-orders for the iPhone 17 open on September 12, with availability starting on September 19.
Update Sept. 9, 2025, at 2:48p.m. ET: Added additional details about the new phone.
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