Apple's iPhone 17 line could be the refresh upgraders were waiting for

After years of incremental refreshes, Apple Inc.’s iPhone lineup feels exciting again.

The company introduced four new phone models on Tuesday: the basic iPhone 17, the superthin Air, the high-end 17 Pro and the supersized 17 Pro Max. All of them include Apple’s latest in-house silicon, more advanced cameras and tougher outer glass. For consumers who try to delay iPhone upgrades until they can buy a new edition that looks meaningfully different, this could be the year — especially now that Apple has confirmed the prices are mostly in line with last year’s versions.

All of the new iPhones will be available on Sept. 19, with preorders starting Sept. 12. While the starting prices are largely the same as before, the iPhone 17 Pro now starts at $1,099, up $100 from last year. (To be fair, it now comes with 256 gigabytes of storage and matches the price of the 256GB iPhone 16 Pro.)

Bloomberg had a chance to briefly try the new handsets, along with the company’s new AirPods Pro earbuds and Apple Watches, during its media event Tuesday. Here are our first impressions:

iPhones

The regular iPhone 17, which starts at $799, has a larger screen (6.3 inches, up from 6.1 on the iPhone 16) with a faster 120-hertz refresh rate, making for noticeably smoother everyday use. While not all consumers will care, for the sort of tech enthusiasts who are attuned to specifications like these, everything from scrolling emails to playing games feels more responsive on the new iPhone 17 compared with the 60-hertz iPhone 16.

The standard iPhone 17 also brings an improved rear camera and a vastly better selfie camera that will likely be a welcome upgrade for mainstream consumers. But in terms of hardware design, it’s the most familiar-looking of the bunch. There are some fresh colors to choose from, though, including lavender, sage and “mist blue.”

Apple’s more exciting changes come with the iPhone Air, measuring just 5.6 millimeters thick, and the more technologically advanced Pro models, which feature a completely overhauled design with an aluminum unibody frame.

The Air dominated media coverage ahead of the event, after Bloomberg first reported that Apple was planning to launch a superthin handset. Weighing only 165 grams, it feels incredibly lightweight in-hand. (The Galaxy S25 Edge from rival Samsung Electronics Co. is a couple grams lighter.)

The Air seems futuristic in a way that devices rarely do when they’ve merely received minor updates between generations. A few minutes of handling the phone confirmed that, as with the Galaxy S25 Edge, the main benefit isn’t necessarily the thinness: It’s having such a large display in a phone that won’t call attention to itself in your pocket.

Still, there are reasons to be skeptical about its battery life — despite Apple’s assurances that the phone can last all day on a charge. And there are other compromises, too: The iPhone Air has just a single rear camera, though you can crop in for 2x portrait photos. It’s also the first iPhone that Apple will sell globally that only supports eSIM connectivity to wireless networks.

If the Air is a nod to the future, the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max are a showcase for what Apple can achieve with a thicker, more conventional form factor. Both should be popular choices. Apple’s new unibody design offers some of the most comfortable ergonomics of any recent iPhone. The edges are slightly more rounded, striking the right balance between the squared-off design of recent models and older iPhones with fully rounded sides. The rear cutout area where the aluminum meets the glass back — necessary for wireless charging — isn’t as noticeable as you might expect.

One upgrade that received little attention during the keynote is a new antireflective coating on the Pro models’ display that drastically cuts down on glare. This is a quality-of-life improvement that buyers should appreciate once they see it in person.

It’s a similar story on the back side of the device, where the lighter shades are essentially smudge-proof since there’s no more glossy glass anywhere on the back, and aluminum handles fingerprints better than the titanium on recent Pros.

As for the color options, the new orange hue is striking, but the silver and “deep blue” Pro phones also look great.

Apple watches

Apple also unveiled three new Apple watches: the budget SE ($249), the Series 11 ($399) and high-end Apple Watch Ultra 3 ($799). On the surface, these products may not seem that different than their predecessors, but Apple is hoping a few minor design changes and a bigger push around health tracking features will win over both new buyers and existing owners who’ve sat out recent upgrade cycles.

The SE, which hadn’t been updated since 2022, has Apple’s S10 processor, along with an always-on display, faster charging, optional 5G connectivity and hand-control gestures, like flicking away notifications. There are also more wellness features, including wrist-temperature monitoring and sleep apnea tracking. (Many of these features were previously on older, high-end models.)

The SE in many ways feels similar to the new Series 11 watch — and when laid side by side next to the Series 10 in Apple’s demo room, it was hard to tell them apart if not for the wristbands. That’s significant considering the price difference between the two lines.

The Series 11 brings fewer visible changes, but its internal upgrades include a promise of as much as 24 hours of battery life (up from 18) hours, optional 5G, tougher glass and a new sleep score feature. That tool factors in data such as sleep duration, bedtime consistency, how often you wake up and time spent in each sleep stage. It’s not unlike what’s already available from companies like Garmin Ltd., Whoop Inc. and Oura Health Oy.

Apple is also adding the ability to detect signs of chronic high blood pressure over a 30-day period. Apple said this hypertension tool will come later this month to 150 countries and regions, including the U.S. and the EU. The feature is still awaiting approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other regulators, the company added. The hypertension detection also comes to the Series 9 and Ultra 2.

The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is the first new Ultra-series timepiece in two years, and it comes with slightly slimmer bezels. It also adds satellite connectivity, which should be attractive to the sort of hikers and outdoor adventurers that this product is marketed toward. Additionally, it touts improved battery life of as much as 42 hours with more standard usage, or a maximum of 72 hours in low-power mode. Still, that falls short of the claims Garmin is making with its most comparable rugged watches, which in some cases can last several weeks on a charge, according to the company. (That said, Garmin’s new Fenix 8 Pro starts at a much-pricier $1,200.)

AirPods Pro 3

Apple also announced the third-generation AirPods Pro earbuds, the first update that product line has seen in three years. The upgraded earbuds have a slightly smaller design and now use foam ear tips for a more secure fit. (Apple is now including an increased selection of five sizes in the box so the earbuds will fit more people.)

In briefly trying out the new earbuds, the foam ear tips made a noticeable improvement to the overall fit and blocked out more ambient noise.

The AirPods Pro 3 also have active noise cancellation that Apple says is twice as powerful as the previous-generation model and four times better than the original from 2019. It was difficult to assess sound quality during the brief media demo, but the noise cancellation did manage to almost completely silence the bustling surroundings.