I felt a sense of déjà vu as I picked up the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max—in Cosmic Orange, of course—at the “Awe Dropping” Apple Event and tried to pin down what about these new Apple smartphones felt so familiar. Then it hit me as I left the Steve Jobs Theater in a tired daze last night: the iPhone 17 Pros remind me of the MacBook Pros with M1 Pro and M1 Max chips.
Like those first “pro” MacBooks, the iPhone 17 Pros are actually built for pros. It’s not just “pro” for marketing. The iPhone 17 Pros are slightly thicker and heavier, have the longest-lasting batteries of any iPhones ever, the best cameras, and are a whole lot more powerful than the iPhone 16 Pros. You feel all the pro-ness as soon as the brick slabs are in your hands. Everything, including the large camera bump or plateau, screams “professional,” just like those 2021 MacBook Pros. And they should because Apple finally prioritized function over form, just like those MacBook Pros, which brought back the SD card slot and MagSafe charging charging. Pro users want an uncompromised gadget—or at least the closest to it—and Apple delivers it this year.
Unlike the iPhone Air that I couldn’t help but ogle with my jaw on the floor, the iPhone 17 Pros elicited less awe from me. In every way, they are beefed-up versions of the iPhone Pros that came before them. The aluminum unibody design has a Ceramic Shield cutout on the backside for wireless charging, and the camera plateau stretches across the whole top third. It’s not the most beautiful iPhone design (that award still goes to the iPhone 4 or iPhone X, in my opinion), but it’s functional. I even noticed that the antenna lines that cut into the side of the frames now bleed around the camera plateau. It’s very similar to the antenna lines that wrap around the display on the Apple Watch Ultras. Again, functional design first—this supposedly improves cellular and wireless connectivity, according to Apple.
I have touched the Cosmic Orange iPhone 17 Pro. Here’s your first look #AppleEvent pic.twitter.com/HUiB8dxC8l — Ray Wong (@raywongy) September 9, 2025
Even with a heftier design, the iPhone 17 Pros don’t feel bulky. In fact, the iPhone 17 Pro Max—the Pro Max model has always been too big and heavy for me—felt lighter and thinner than it actually is. For the first time ever, I felt I could use the iPhone 17 Pro Max daily and my hands wouldn’t hurt from gripping it like an old Game Boy. The curved metal frame definitely helps to make the iPhone 17 Pros feel thinner than they really are. Its size still isn’t great if you care about pocketability, though.
Just like I said in my iPhone Air hands-on, I’ll have to test the iPhone 17 Pros to see how well the performance and battery life are, and how good the cameras are. That being said, the thicker designs also meant Apple was able to improve the thermals for sustained performance when the A19 Pro chip is pushed hard for 3D mobile gaming and GPU-intensive tasks like capturing RAW photos and videos (and editing them). If that’s not prioritizing function first over form, I don’t know what is. Who remembers the dark days when the thermals on Intel-equipped MacBook Pros were so bad? Apple, post-Jony Ive, seems to give a sh*t about this now, and I’m all for it.
The Center Stage camera is easily my new favorite camera feature. The ability to hold the iPhone 17 Pros vertically and take horizontal selfies (works for video, too) is a game-changer if you ask me. No more contorting my hand into a claw to hold my iPhone sideways to shoot a selfie or vlog. I also really liked the “Dual Capture” feature, which lets you record video from both the rear and front cameras. The front camera appears as a picture-in-picture box that you can move to any corner of the screen. It’s going to be great for reaction videos.
I also did a table wobble test. Here’s how that went:
iPhone 17 Pro table wobble test! Does it pass? Let’s find out! #AppleEvent pic.twitter.com/jhUv1zxR3K — Ray Wong (@raywongy) September 9, 2025
iPhone 17 hands-on
The iPhone 17 was the least exciting model for me, and I spent the least amount of time playing with it. It’s a straightforward update with an A19 chip, a larger 6.3-inch 120Hz display, a new dual-camera system with twin 48-megapixel main and ultrawide lenses, and some new colors. The Sage green colorway is my favorite of the new bunch, but they also lack the vibrancy of the colors from the iPhone 16 series.
There’s really not much to say about the iPhone 17… it feels like an iPhone 16 Pro, with the same size screen, but with an aluminum frame. It’s lightweight, but not the thinnest or thinnest in the iPhone lineup. It’s the everyperson’s iPhone, and I don’t foresee that changing.
The best part is probably that the iPhone 17 still starts at $799, now with 256GB of storage.