5 issues the iPhone 17 must must succeed

With the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro firmly within the rearview mirror (and nonetheless awaiting their Apple Intelligence improve), there’s time to start out 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 perhaps incorrect to count on Apple to dramatically reinvent the smartphone. There’ll at all times be a display screen, 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 look like one thing must be performed to maintain prospects . Conserving 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 screen 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 data on the display screen) 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. Except you are feeling the graceful swiping and extra practical animations of a 120Hz iPhone for your self, you possible will not discover a distinction between a ProMotion and non-ProMotion show side-by-side.

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

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2 Extra shiny and saturated colour 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 persona. You continue to see it in animations and small particulars of the corporate’s merchandise (that the bezels of your telephone seem to bulge as you alter the amount in iOS 18 is a latest 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. Almost 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 units which are virtually glued to most individuals’s palms. 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, shiny pink, and greenish Teal, is a step in the appropriate route. If we’re not returning to the deeply saturated colour choices of the iPhone 12, then the iPhone 17 ought to no less than sustain the development Apple began with the iPhone 16. Let’s get a purple or yellow telephone 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, nevertheless it hasn’t radically improved in a very long time. Your telephone lasts “all-day,” which interprets to a full day and a few change with regular use, and longer if you happen to solely have a look at your telephone to test the time (the corporate measuring battery life in video playback solely makes issues extra complicated). The truth that Apple might be so constant given all the brand new issues iPhones are anticipated to do is commendable in its personal means, nevertheless it’s time for issues to vary. Google and Samsung telephones are capable of get multi-day battery life largely via software program optimization. Apple’s Low Battery Mode can get you out of some scrapes, nevertheless it does not evaluate to the Extreme Battery Saver possibility on Pixels.

Battery efficiency on the iPhone 17 must be higher, both by growing the dimensions of the battery within the telephone itself or higher optimizing iOS to stretch how lengthy the telephone can be utilized. On some stage, any firm goes to be restricted by battery chemistry, but when Apple is leaning in direction of practical enhancements to the iPhone moderately than aesthetic ones, battery life must be excessive on the checklist. 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 adjustments may translate to the battery lifetime of the iPhone down the highway stays to be seen.

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4 An expanded position for Digicam Management

New buttons open all kinds of potentialities

The jury continues to be out on whether or not the iPhone 16’s Digicam Management button is a significant new enter methodology for the iPhone. One factor that has grow to be 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 Digicam Management isn’t solely which you can press it at a number of ranges of stress, nevertheless it’s additionally a contact floor in its personal proper. Which begs the query: What if Digicam Management did not simply management the digicam?

The iPhone already ships with a multi-functional enter within the Action Button, however Digicam Management completely feels able to doing extra. Apple plans on utilizing it as a visible enter for Apple Intelligence, nevertheless it may simply as simply grow to be a scroll wheel for interacting along with your iPhone with out having to the touch the display screen. Smartphones have featured scroll wheels and these sorts of contact surfaces earlier than. The Asus Zenfone 9 featured the same button that might be used to scroll the telephone, and the position of Digicam Management, which is slightly too far up once you maintain your telephone horizontally, however way more snug once you maintain the telephone vertically, would match good. The iPhone 17 ought to increase the position of Digicam Management to make it extra integral to how you employ your telephone.

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5 A brand new concept aside 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 telephone 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 need for an iPhone that appears dramatically totally different from those that got here earlier than, and I’ve usually been fascinated by how a lot Google adjustments the design of the Pixel between yearly releases. A thinner telephone is not actually sensible, although. It could depart much less room for a battery, and require all kinds of different adjustments to make the telephone work.

Apple could be higher served making an iPhone 17 Plus that works higher than a completely new iPhone 17 “Slim” or “Air” that appears totally different. Modifications must be pushed by some tangible profit first moderately than the rest. iPhones aren’t actually that heavy or thick anyway, until you are utilizing an iPhone Professional Max. This recreation of constructing issues thinner to be able to make them thicker, with an extended battery life does not should be performed anymore. It isn’t novel, and it does not result in a greater telephone.

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The iPhone 17 must be higher, not totally different

If there’s one rule Apple follows, it is that it avoids leaping into something with two ft first. Modifications come slowly if they arrive in any respect, and are available lengthy after individuals 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 adjustments do make the telephone higher. It is very straightforward for Apple to relaxation on its laurels, however making the display screen 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.