Meet the new iPhone, same as the old iPhone.
That is usually the takeaway from Apple Inc.’s annual September refresh, which took place Tuesday. Incremental boosts in camera, battery, design, and a new color scheme (cosmic orange!) are typically trotted out, with company CEO Tim Cook presiding over a predictable, two-hour presentation festooned with slick videos (ads?) and demos. And we got much of the same this year, with a few notable exceptions.
With its usual bravado, Apple hyped its event as “awe dropping.” But what used to be “wow” moments now elicit muted reactions like “cool” and “OK,” observed CircleClick CEO Anne Ahola Ward.
“We’ve gone from magic to golf claps,” she said in an email. “What caught my attention at the Apple press event this week wasn’t what was said, it was what wasn’t. No updates to Siri, not even a mention, zero Apple Intelligence updates. The focus instead was on hardware, which seems to be Tim Cook’s safe place. The iPhone Air is being touted as thin, but the battery won’t last a day and is being sold alongside a mophie! Less features. Less compatibility. Less durability.”
The most significant design evolution in the iPhone line is the new model, iPhone Air. The ultra-thin device (5.6mm thick) represents Apple’s answer to Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge, prioritizing portability and sleek aesthetics over maximum battery capacity — Air delivers 27 hours of video playback compared to 30 hours on the standard iPhone 17, 33 hours on the iPhone 17 Pro, and 39 hours on the iPhone 17 Pro Max. iPhone Air comes without a SIM card tray, making it the first eSIM-only iPhone.
Engineering compromises are strategic rather than severe. Battery capacity takes a hit because of the compressed form factor, though Apple has implemented battery redesign and iOS 26 efficiency improvements to minimize the impact. The camera system simplifies a single-rear sensor, albeit one capable of delivering two-times less zoom functionality.
The Pro models receive Apple’s most advanced mobile processor, the A19 Pro, which provides up to 40% faster sustained performance compared to previous generations.
Pre-orders for all iPhone 17 models begin Friday, with retail availability starting Sept. 19.
What turned people’s heads was AirPods Pro 3.
Apple says it made a huge leap forward with its active noise cancellation algorithms that dazzled those who tried it on Tuesday.
Yet the headline-grabbing Live Translation feature that lets you hear another language instantly translated into your own. Alphabet Inc.’s Google recently introduced live, in-call language translations that rely on on-device LLM processing.
Whether the rote Apple event perks up iPhone sales may not be so much about the latest features and promise of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities down the road, but an upgrade cycle among a large slice of iPhone users.
“We estimate roughly 315 million iPhone users of 1.5 billion users worldwide have not upgraded their phones in over four years speaking to an upgrade opportunity on the horizon for Cupertino with China front and center,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note shortly before the event. “The company’s focus on much-improved internal product efficiencies balanced with bold redesigns and practical new features interwoven with Apple Intelligence sets Apple up to launch towards an eventual super cycle over the next 12 to 18 months while the company looks to improve its AI strategy that’s holding the stock back.”
