While the iPhone 16 Pro feels new and exciting, its successor isn’t far away. With Apple releasing new numbered handsets every September, we’re nearly halfway between iPhone generations.
Is it worth holding out for the iPhone 17 Pro rather than buying an iPhone 16 Pro today? It could well be.
Here are seven upgrades rumored to be coming with the next generation of Pro iPhone.
A fresh new look
Pro iPhones haven’t refreshed their look since Dynamic Island arrived with the iPhone 14 Pro. However, it sounds like the iPhone 17 Pro will have a bold new design when it launches later this year.
According to the leaker Jon Prosser’s Front Page Tech YouTube channel, the Pro iPhone’s triple camera array will no longer be confined to a raised rectangle but instead be part of a block that stretches across the back of the device. It’s a divisive look that will make your new phone stand out.
A19 Pro power
Except for the iPhone 14’s non-Pro handsets, which inherit the same A15 chipset as those used on the iPhone 13, each new generation of Apple handset gets a processor upgrade. For the iPhone 17 Pro, that means an upgrade to the A19 Pro.
This was once tipped to be manufactured to the 2nm process, but that expectation has now been rowed back, and we now believe it to use an improved version of TSMC’s 3nm process.
With no leaked benchmarks yet, it’s probably safest to assume it will offer the same ~20% speed improvement as Apple chip upgrades usually provide. Hopefully, this enhanced 3nm process will also improve efficiency gains and battery life.
Vapor chamber cooling — maybe
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. Yes, Apple has been tipped to embrace vapor-chamber cooling since 2021, but the iPhone 17 Pro range might actually be the first to benefit from it, meaning better performance with less chance of thermal throttling when under pressure.
The fact that it’s been tipped for four years isn’t why this is a “maybe,” though. While some say both Pro handsets will get vapor chamber cooling this year, the analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes it will be limited to just the iPhone 17 Pro Max model, which would be disappointing for buyers of the regular Pro.
4GB more RAM
The iPhone Pro models have had 8GB RAM for the past two generations. This year, the non-Pro versions matched that, but it sounds like the flagship handsets will gain the advantage again in 2025.
Both Jeff Pu and Ming-Chi Kuo have tipped the iPhone 17 Pro models to get an extra 4GB RAM, taking them to 12GB. Given the non-Pro upgrade was for Apple Intelligence-related reasons, that might hint at more RAM-intensive AI tricks to come this generation.
An upgraded telephoto lens
The iPhone 16 Pro’s triple-camera array has two 48-megapixel sensors and a telephoto lens stuck at 12 megapixels.
According to several sources, this odd-one-out sensor will be upgraded to 48 megapixels this year, which could seriously improve the quality of long-range shots and hopefully improve distant video capture simultaneously.
Improved selfies
The telephoto lens might not be the only camera getting an upgrade this year. Apple’s selfie cameras have stuck at 12 megapixels since the iPhone 11 arrived in 2019 (albeit with the introduction of a f/1.9 aperture and autofocus with the iPhone 14).
It will reportedly get an upgrade in 2024, with the entire iPhone 17 family’s selfie camera getting uplifted to 24 megapixels but jumping from a five-element lens to a six-element one. That should lead to brighter images with less distortion, if true.
(Slightly) faster charging
If you want a handset that will fill its battery quickly, the iPhone is not the device for you. Officially, the iPhone only offers 20W charging, a far cry from the 100W charging speeds offered by the OnePlus 13.
However, a GF Securities note states the iPhone 17 range is tipped to get faster. It's not much speedier, but a little with 35W wired speeds.
In practice, this may not make all that much of a difference. Despite the 20W official rating, the iPhone 13 Pro Max was shown to hit 27W speeds back in 2021, though it’s always possible this too will exceed its official rating.
iPhone 17 Pro outlook
Taken individually, none of these upgrades are all that exciting, except for a 48MP telephoto lens. But together, they add up to a phone that should be a substantial upgrade to its predecessor.
While this is based on rumors — albeit reputable ones — it’s looking very promising. With six months before Tim Cook is due to show off new handsets on stage in Cupertino, there’s plenty of time for more exciting upgrades to emerge that could make 2025 a massive year for iPhone enthusiasts.
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