Iphone 17 Pro and Iphone 17 Pro Max
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The new iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max have been released, sparking discussion about their design, features, and value, with some users praising the camera capabilities while others criticize the lack of differentiation from the base model and design choices.
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Sep 9, 2025 at 2:13 PM EDT
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And there's no black color.
obvious by the extra storage and additional camera features
I'm the same, thousands and thousands of casual photos of people, animals, flowers, landscapes with a 15 Pro Max. My DSLR sits unused in a case. It has to be the 17 Pro but I'm debating regular or Max.
EDIT: actually, base Pro is only 22% more battery life. I was accidentally comparing it to the Pro Max. Still, important.
Plus, the orange looks great. (In their promo shots. We've occasionally seen these look a lot less vivid once you see them in real life.)
and that bump has again lens bumps, uneven, and the cases are really fugly and large
It's a quality drop for sure, but it's never extrapolating pixels that weren't optically there as software zoom does.
That's what I had hoped too, but from the images I've seen it looks like the cameras themselves bump out past the shelf far enough that it will still wobble.
It's not the dullest refresh, and they always sell plenty. I'm sure this will be no exception.
https://www.ign.com/articles/28-years-later-danny-boyle-goes...
https://www.motionpictures.org/2025/06/how-28-years-later-dp...
https://www.wired.com/story/danny-boyle-says-shooting-on-iph...
Related: Driver POV footage for F1 was shot with Apple-created custom iPhone rigs as well.
Most scenes were filmed with iPhones, only a few were filmed with other cameras.
I think that VFR videos need to be re-encoded into CFR videos in order to be able to work with all the footage shot by different devices. It sounds to me like with the Genlock feature, it could actually be possible to record CFR videos on an iPhone and also synchronize the iPhone with other devices so that both video and audio does not drift relative to other devices. But that's just my speculation as I couldn't find any details about the Genlock feature.
I would love to know how the team working on 28 years later handled synchronization of the multiple iPhones they were using to shoot some scenes of the movie and if they got a helping hand from Apple, which perhaps allowed them to use some internal APIs to access hidden features of the camera stack...
Finally caught up to the Amiga I see
Sometimes I use my iPhone instead of my $3000 camera rig just because I can get the clip somewhere within seconds instead of the 2-3 minute rigamarole of SD card ingestion.
It is not just Apple. I can’t think of any phone maker that is releasing exciting new things.
For me, foldable and curved screen phones _could_ be that, but no implementations are. Supposedly Apple is working on both of those, so maybe they can do it right.
Most of the people in my family and friends have iPhone X, 11, 12, or 13s and run at varying degrees of "dead any day now" and "completely fine" (from old to new, generally).
I'm really happy with the camera features, but there's less differentiation between base iPhone 17 and 17 Pro this go-round. Probably enough for me to still get the Pro, but the iPhone 17 is looking like a pretty cool option this year.
It's obvious to anyone given the radical new design that you have an iPhone 16 Pro or not. That's not the reason for removing black. They'd have removed silver for the same reason if it was.
But uh. I can't tell you what color my phone is now. I normally buy black, but I think it's silver? Could have to peel off the dbrand skin.
I do like the orange though, it's really attractive. Next do Product Red version that is similarly bright. I miss my product red's.
EDIT: Huh you're right! It's now possible. Groovy!
Last time I went with the non-Pro option was 6 years ago with the 11. Back then I regretted it, it was a clear downgrade from my previous iPhone X (which I consider the first "Pro" iPhone) - largely because of the screen, 11's LCD really wasn'g great after the X's AMOLED. Since then, I've had the 13 Pro and 15 Pro, both have been great, even though both are a bit weak in the battery department. Now I'm again considering the base 17.
Not interested in the Air or the 17 Pro Max, and the 17 Pro doesn't really seem like it's worth the extra cost to me, since the base model seems really good this time around. At a glance, the things you get with the 17 Pro for extra 350€ (German pricing) are:
- Unibody, but same aluminum material
- Same size, same _exact_ screen (all specs match)
- A19 Pro chip vs A19 - relevant for gaming (I don't) or other highly intensive applications (video editing I guess? again, not something I do a lot of)
- Better camera system - arguably the only relevant thing for a daily driver here
- LiDAR - very limited usefulness, in my experience having it on the 15 Pro
- USB 3 with 10 Gbit speeds vs USB 2 speeds on the USB-C port - relevant if you transfer large files like ProRes video, for me it's basically only when doing local backups to the Mac to install iOS betas, so largely irrelevant
- 31 hours battery life vs 30 - marginal difference
- Same charging, connectivity, everything else really
Will likely end up visiting an Apple Store to fiddle with both options, and look at the co-pay prices that our company will offer, then decide. But so far, it's much less of a clear Pro choice than it was in the previous years.
I got lots of blurry closeups on older iphones.
I'm certainly not a photographer but I got the 16 Pro because of ProMotion. If I were upgrading this year, I'd probably go for the standard 17 because it finally has practically everything a standard user could expect.
See: https://x.com/neilcybart/status/1965502456886100389
I always keep my phone in a case because I’m a coward but I would not want to hide this.
Liquid Glass design + This lineup is a middle-finger to ergonomics and accessibility.
I just want a non distractive phone with good battery life. E-Paper screen, compact format, yet still great cameras - maybe LoRa capability for Meshtastic / Meshcore, embedded swiss army knife.
Think I’m done with Apple phones after that one.
First time I noticed such claim in an iPhone announcement.
Compare the New iPhone Models - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45186294 - Sept 2025 (95 comments)
Apple Debuts iPhone 17 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45186023 - Sept 2025 (104 comments)
iPhone Air - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45186015 - Sept 2025 (431 comments)
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