5 issues the iPhone 17 must need to succeed

With the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro firmly within the rearview mirror (and nonetheless awaiting their Apple Intelligence improve), there’s time to begin studying the tea leaves as to the place Apple will go subsequent with its star product. The iPhone 17 ought to meaningfully enhance on the iPhone 16 launched this yr, should not it?

At this level within the smartphone’s life, it is possibly fallacious to count on Apple to dramatically reinvent the smartphone. There’ll all the time be a display, and apps, and a number of cameras to play with. However based mostly on the recent sluggish sales performance of the corporate’s smartphone, it does seem to be one thing must be executed to maintain prospects . Retaining what’s already leaked out about Apple’s subsequent iPhone in thoughts, this is the best enhancements the corporate ought to add to the iPhone 17 to make it stand out.

It is time to deliver clean scrolling and an always-on display to the bottom iPhone

The professional variations of Apple’s iPhone have had clean, high-refresh charge shows for years. Apple first launched it is 120Hz ProMotion show on the iPhone 13 Pro, and allowed the show to be “always-on” (shifting to a low refresh charge to preserve battery whereas nonetheless displaying info on the display) on the iPhone 14 Pro.

Earlier than then, all iPhones had 60Hz shows, and since then, the bottom iPhone and iPhone Plus fashions have nonetheless had 60Hz shows. Until you are feeling the graceful swiping and extra life like animations of a 120Hz iPhone for your self, you probably will not discover a distinction between a ProMotion and non-ProMotion show side-by-side.

Apple has already executed a superb job of optimizing its software program for 60Hz. However there are advantages, just like the always-on show, that might make an iPhone 17 with a ProMotion show extra usable, too. StandBy Mode is feasible on all of Apple’s present iPhones, but it surely solely works to its fullest extent on an iPhone with a ProMotion show that may show the time, climate, and different info all-day relatively than whenever you wake the display. Reports suggest Apple might give all of the iPhone 17s its ProMotion show.

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2 Extra vivid and saturated shade choices

The iPhone has settled for uninteresting, metallic colours for too lengthy

Within the decades-long pursuit of making minimalist, refined {hardware} design, Apple has deserted a way of enjoyable and character. You continue to see it in animations and small particulars of the corporate’s merchandise (that the bezels of your cellphone seem to bulge as you regulate the amount in iOS 18 is a current instance), however the exterior of the corporate’s merchandise is decidedly buttoned up. Nowhere is that blandness extra obvious than within the firm’s colours. Practically each Apple product options uninteresting, pastel variations of brighter, extra fascinating colours. They usually look extra just like the metallic they’re partially constructed from than any adjective Apple makes use of to explain them, and that should change.

These are gadgets which might be virtually glued to most individuals’s arms. They need to be an expression of their sense of favor, not be ruled by Apple’s environment friendly manufacturing practices. The iPhone 16, which options an ultramarine blue, vivid pink, and greenish Teal, is a step in the precise route. If we’re not returning to the deeply saturated shade choices of the iPhone 12, then the iPhone 17 ought to at the very least sustain the development Apple began with the iPhone 16. Let’s get a crimson or yellow cellphone once more!

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3 A bigger, extra environment friendly battery

Smartphones ought to final for a number of days on a single cost

iFixit / Pocket-lint

Battery life has been constant on the iPhone, but it surely hasn’t radically improved in a very long time. Your cellphone lasts “all-day,” which interprets to a full day and a few change with regular use, and longer in case you solely take a look at your cellphone to examine the time (the corporate measuring battery life in video playback solely makes issues extra complicated). The truth that Apple will be so constant given all the brand new issues iPhones are anticipated to do is commendable in its personal method, but it surely’s time for issues to vary. Google and Samsung telephones are capable of get multi-day battery life largely by way of software program optimization. Apple’s Low Battery Mode can get you out of some scrapes, but it surely does not evaluate to the Extreme Battery Saver possibility on Pixels.

Battery efficiency on the iPhone 17 must be higher, both by rising the scale of the battery within the cellphone itself or higher optimizing iOS to stretch how lengthy the cellphone can be utilized. On some stage, any firm goes to be restricted by battery chemistry, but when Apple is leaning in direction of useful enhancements to the iPhone relatively than aesthetic ones, battery life ought to be excessive on the listing. The corporate is reportedly exploring building its own batteries and is at present utilizing a new kind of adhesive that makes batteries simpler to take away and substitute, however how these modifications might translate to the battery lifetime of the iPhone down the highway stays to be seen.

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4 An expanded position for Digital camera Management

New buttons open all kinds of prospects

The jury remains to be out on whether or not the iPhone 16’s Digital camera Management button is a significant new enter technique for the iPhone. One factor that has develop into clear is that it feels good to make use of, and Apple has plans to increase it with software program updates (the corporate is including a two-step shutter in some unspecified time in the future sooner or later). The benefit of Digital camera Management just isn’t solely that you could press it at a number of ranges of stress, but it surely’s additionally a contact floor in its personal proper. Which begs the query: What if Digital camera Management did not simply management the digicam?

The iPhone already ships with a multi-functional enter within the Action Button, however Digital camera Management completely feels able to doing extra. Apple plans on utilizing it as a visible enter for Apple Intelligence, but it surely might simply as simply develop into a scroll wheel for interacting along with your iPhone with out having to the touch the display. Smartphones have featured scroll wheels and these sorts of contact surfaces earlier than. The Asus Zenfone 9 featured an identical button that could possibly be used to scroll the cellphone, and the position of Digital camera Management, which is a bit of too far up whenever you maintain your cellphone horizontally, however far more snug whenever you maintain the cellphone vertically, would match excellent. The iPhone 17 ought to increase the position of Digital camera Management to make it extra integral to how you employ your cellphone.

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5 A brand new thought apart from making the iPhone thinner

The iPhone does not have to visibly change so long as it functionally improves

A rumor dominating the present crop of iPhone 17 leaks is the concept that Apple is planning on retiring the iPhone Plus (the spot within the lineup beforehand held by the iPhone mini) and changing it with a new slimmer iPhone 17. This new cellphone would function a redesigned digicam bump, and may even draw inspiration from the dramatically thinner M4 iPad Pro Apple launched in 2024. I perceive the will for an iPhone that appears dramatically completely different from those that got here earlier than, and I’ve usually been fascinated by how a lot Google modifications the design of the Pixel between yearly releases. A thinner cellphone is not actually sensible, although. It might depart much less room for a battery, and require all kinds of different modifications to make the cellphone work.

Apple can be higher served making an iPhone 17 Plus that works higher than a wholly new iPhone 17 “Slim” or “Air” that appears completely different. Adjustments ought to be pushed by some tangible profit first relatively than the rest. iPhones aren’t actually that heavy or thick anyway, except you are utilizing an iPhone Professional Max. This recreation of constructing issues thinner so to make them thicker, with an extended battery life does not should be performed anymore. It is not novel, and it does not result in a greater cellphone.

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The iPhone 17 ought to be higher, not completely different

If there’s one rule Apple follows, it is that it avoids leaping into something with two ft first. Adjustments come slowly if they arrive in any respect, and are available lengthy after folks have requested for them. I am not anticipating the iPhone 17 to be a reinvention of the smartphone. I simply hope that if it’ll really feel incremental, the modifications do make the cellphone higher. It’s totally simple for Apple to relaxation on its laurels, however making the display smoother or battery life longer, whereas not as thrilling as a redesign, would make everybody joyful.

Apple iPhone 16

This yr’s iPhone 16 line blurs the road between the “Professional” and the base-level iPhone by providing a brand new digicam button and the Motion Button, alongside the A18 chip.