iPhone 17 Pro vs iPhone 16 Pro: 5 biggest expected upgrades

Despite getting a 5x telephoto zoom and Apple Intelligence, the iPhone 16 Pro felt like a relatively safe update for Apple.

To be clear, it’s still one of the best phones you can buy, but there isn’t much reason for the average owner of the iPhone 15 Pro to consider upgrading, unless they’re really into photography.

It’s still early days for the iPhone 16 Pro, but it already sounds like it could be a more significant jump than last year’s update. Here are the five biggest expected changes rumored so far.

A bold new look

The Pro iPhone’s design has only undergone minor changes since the iPhone 14 Pro introduced Dynamic Island, but that looks set to change this year.

According to the pretty reliable leaker Jon Prosser at Front Page Tech, the new flagship iPhones are going to take a leaf out of recent Pixel phones’ books, with a camera block stretching to cover the back of the phone. Interestingly, Apple seems to be doing this, just as Google is moving away from that design language with the upcoming Pixel 9a.

We mentioned Dynamic Island earlier, and that’s tipped to get smaller on both the iPhone 17 Pro Max and the iPhone 17 Air. With that in mind, it would be surprising if the regular Pro model missed out on the upgrade, but we’ll see.

A big boost for photographers

The iPhone 16 Pro has three rear cameras. Both the main and ultrawide lenses have 48 megapixels, but the 5x telephoto lens is limited to 12 megapixels. According to analyst Jeff Pu, this is set to change in 2025 with the zoom lens matching the others with 48 megapixels.

Selfies should also get a boost, with Pu also predicting the front-facing camera’s megapixel count doubling from 12 to 24.

A generational speed boost

Aside from the iPhone 14 getting the same chipset as the iPhone 13 — a move to make the Pro models seem more desirable — Apple always gives its new handsets a speed boost between generations.

This year, the iPhone 17 Pro is set to benefit from a generational jump to the A19 chipset. While this is no longer expected to be the first chip manufactured to the 2nm process, chip maker TSMC will be introducing a new N3P process to boost transistor density.

The upshot is we can look forward to better performance and efficiency, though it’s not clear just how much of a boost we’ll get yet. Historically, a new chip provides between a 10 and 20% speed boost in iPhones, so hopefully this will be on the higher end.

Faster charging, at last

The efficiency boost may lead to a longer battery life, but a more significant change may be afoot when it comes to charging.

According to the investment firm GF Securities, the entire iPhone 17 family is expected to get 35W wired charging — quite a boost from the official 20W speeds offered now.

The word “official” is doing some heavy lifting there, however. Historically, iPhones have charged faster than advertised, with the iPhone 13 Pro Max capable of 27W speeds back in 2021.

Nonetheless, an official upgrade would still be welcome, as the iPhone has lagged behind other smartphones in terms of charging speeds. And while this is nowhere near the 100W charging offered by the OnePlus 13, it should still be a big improvement.

More RAM — maybe

With Apple Intelligence prompting a boost in RAM for the regular iPhone 16 last year, it seems like the iPhone 17 Pro handsets will be getting an upgrade of their own in 2025.

The analyst Jeff Pu believes that both the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max handsets will hit 12GB RAM this year, giving them 4GB more than the current versions have.

However, another analyst — Ming-Chi Kuo — has previously stated that he expects this to only apply to the iPhone 17 Pro Max, which would undoubtedly be disappointing for those who favor a smaller device.

iPhone 17 Pro vs. iPhone 16 Pro outlook

Taken together, the rumored changes make a good case for holding off on your upgrade. Compared to the current Apple flagship, the iPhone 17 Pro is set to perform better, offer better telephoto capture and charge faster. The new look — while not to everyone’s taste — also neatly separates it from recent iPhones.

And there’s plenty of time for more differences to make themselves known. The iPhone 17 isn’t expected to arrive until September, so we’d expect leaks to reveal more exciting upgrades in the weeks and months to come.