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Title: iPhone 17 release date, iOS 26 features and everything else to know
about Apple's upcoming lineup

Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2025 15:52:58 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/i...

August is almost over, which means we're getting closer to the Apple iPhone
event ΓÇö it usually takes place in mid-September. That also means we'll
finally get to officially lay eyes on the iPhone 17 lineup. The latest iOS 26
features will come preinstalled on the new models, as well as any additional
features Apple reveals at the launch event. But since we (presumably) still
have to wait a few weeks until the iPhone event, we can only speculate what
the new devices will look like. As with most unreleased iPhones, rumors and
leaks have trickled in about the hardware side ahead of the official
introduction. Here's what we're expecting and what we can reasonably assume
we'll get from Apple in September.

What are the latest iPhone 17 rumors?

Could new "TechWoven" cases be introduced with the latest iPhone 17 lineup?
That's what leaker Majin Bu claims, per a MacRumors report. The cases match
the rumored design on the iPhone 17 models, with the wide camera bump.
MacRumors says this could be a revamped version of the much-maligned
FineWoven case, which was discontinued due to being susceptible to scratches
and stains.

The leaker noted there are two lanyard holes for "convenient and secure
carrying," so it could be worn around your neck.

More recently, the same leaker shared what they allege to be the case colors,
in a post titled "New TechWoven Case Colors for iPhone 17 Revealed." The
colors shown in the image are grey/black, blue, green, purple and orange.

New TechWoven Case Colors for iPhone 17 Revealed

Full Article: https://t.co/nSA8Wbek5G pic.twitter.com/W6fZdb8psn

ΓÇö Majin Bu (@MajinBuOfficial) August 21, 2025

This is just a rumor and we won't know what the actual iPhone 17 models or
accessories will look like until Apple's iPhone event next month. That said,
the shared photos (including the one embedded above) are more convincing than
usual.

How much will the iPhone 17 cost?

Apple's announced plan to expand US-based manufacturing partners seems to
give it at least some shielding from the steepest Trump administration
tariffs that have already triggered price increases on everything from Switch
consoles to high-end cameras to Sonos speakers. But given that President
Trump's trade policies can change from week to week, and Apple's continuing
reliance on Asia-based supply chains, price shocks remain an ongoing
possibility. The bigger question is: Will Apple absorb any higher costs, or
pass them on to consumers?

If prices do creep up, Apple may choose to pair it with an "upgrade."
Consider this recent rumor posted by MacRumors from a leaker known as
"Instant Digital," suggesting that the default storage of the iPhone 17 line
may start at 256GB, doubling the current 128GB baseline. While that could be
accompanied by a price increase of $50, Apple could at least pitch it as a
"better value." That said, the company doubled the default RAM of its Mac
computers from 8GB to 16GB at no extra cost in 2024 ΓÇö but that was before
the current Trump tariff cycle started.

When will the iPhone 17 series be announced?

Most years, the flagship smartphones are introduced in September. MacRumors
highlighted a story originally reported by iphone-ticker.de that the Apple
iPhone 17 event could be Tuesday, September 9, according to information
gleaned from German mobile phone providers.

It's still too early to have the specific dates; some years, Apple only gives
a week or two of lead time between sending invites and hosting the event. But
years of past precedent show that sometime in September should be when the 17
models make their debut. This family of smartphones may be the last to follow
that trend, however. There have been hints that the introduction of the
iPhone 18 collection in 2026 will be split into a pro-tier announcement in
the fall and a standard model announcement the following spring.

What will the new iPhone 17 lineup include?

Design leaks suggest that Apple is building an ultra-thin smartphone, likely
to be named the iPhone 17 Air to match Apple's ultralight laptop designation.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, often a solid source of advanced intel about Apple,
reported in January that the iPhone 17 Air will be equipped with a basic A19
chip and will only have a single camera lens. It may also use Apple's new in-
house modem, which was introduced in February on the iPhone 16e. More details
about this development may leak ahead of September, but that's what we know
for now.

An investor note from Apple analyst Jeff Pu indicated that the Air will have
a titanium frame. If his reports are accurate, the lightweight smartphone
will be the only entry in the iPhone 17 lineup to use that metal; the iPhone
17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max are expected to be made of aluminum,
which is oddly a lighter material than titanium. Other speculation had
suggested that the Air would use a blend of aluminum and titanium, so the
exact materials may not be known until the official announcement.

Additionally, an August 4 MacRumors report says the internal battery pack of
the iPhone Air is just 2.49mm thick ΓÇö half the thickness of the iPhone 17
Pro battery. The leak was posted on the Korean-language Naver blog, where
they show the alleged batteries of the iPhone 17 Air and 17 Pro side by side.
The same account claimed the 17 Air's battery capacity was a mere 2,800 mAh,
MacRumors notes. (That's below the battery capacity of current iPhone 16
models.)

On a similar topic, an iPhone 17 Pro production leak appears to have revealed
an all-aluminum chassis, according to MacRumors. Originally posted by leaker
Majin Bu, the image shows a shell that has a large round hole on the back
(where the Apple logo typically is) to allow for MagSafe charging. MacRumors
says this could just be a molding but notes that the aluminum frame (versus
the current titanium in Pro iPhone models) would yield a significantly lower
weight.

That same leaker (Majin Bu), whom MacRumors classifies as a "hit-or-miss
leaker," suggests the iPhone 17 Pro will have better wireless signal strength
thanks to an updated antenna design. The individual posted a render on X that
shows a new antenna system that wraps around the iPhone 17 Pro's supposedly
wider rear camera bump. Again, this is a render, not a real-world photo. That
said, we can't knock the goal of better wireless reception, so we're hoping
this one has a degree of truth to it.

Each new roster includes a base model, but over the years, Apple has shaken
up the variety of phones it offers. Most likely there will be an iPhone 17
and an iPhone 17 Pro. Apple has also committed to the size matters
philosophy, and has been building an iPhone Pro Max option with an even
bigger screen and better battery life; the 17 roster will almost certainly
have one as well.

The new Pro iPhones are said to have a full-width "camera island" on the
rear, which would mark the first time an Apple model opted for that design.
This feature can be seen in the purported iPhone 17 "spotted in the wild."
The pics, highlighted on MacRumors, show a black cased iPhone (17 Pro?) with
the distinct back panel. Is it the real deal? The dual angles lend a degree
of credibility in a social media landscape increasingly polluted with AI-
enhanced fakes, but your guess is as good as ours.

I just spotted a test development iPhone in the wild 🤩🤩🤩
pic.twitter.com/iS3PtKWqxJ

— Fox Pupy 🦊🧡 (@Skyfops) July 28, 2025

The iPhone 17 Air seems primed to take the place of a potential iPhone 17
Plus. Since the iPhone 16e was only just introduced in February at a
surprisingly high price point, it seems unlikely that there will be a new
addition to that lower end of the spectrum, the models that were previously
called SE.

At the very least, it sounds like the iPhone 17 Air won't take away the
charging port and rely only on wireless connectivity. Bloomberg said that
while Apple had investigated making the iPhone 17 Air without a single port,
the company (fortunately) changed plans. He also says that the rumored phone
will have a 6.6-inch screen and include the Dynamic Island and Camera Control
button. Finally, the price is rumored at $900 ΓÇö likely more than the
standard iPhone 17 but less than the Pro.

We've also gotten what seems to be a reliable look at what the color lineup
will be for the new smartphones. Macworld reported that the iPhone 17 will be
available in black, white, steel gray, green, purple and light blue. The
iPhone 17 Air will reportedly have four color options: black, white, light
blue and light gold. While the Air colors will be less saturated, the visuals
for the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max will go bold. The options for the
Pro models are expected to be black, white, gray, dark blue and orange.

On July 30, Tom's Guide highlighted an X post from Sonny Dickson ΓÇö a
longtime and generally reliable leaker of unreleased iPhone information ΓÇö
showing "dummy" iPhone 17 models in the new colors that were the source of
the aforementioned Macworld story. While these are literally just mock-ups
ΓÇö not real, leaked iPhones ΓÇö it's interesting to see how the design and
color rumors translate into a real-world look and feel.

To add the the rumors, a Weibo leaker known as Digital Chat Station suggests
the iPhone 17e will come equipped with a new design that includes the Dynamic
Island, MacRumors reports. According to the post, the new phone will have the
A19 chip and could have a 6.1-inch OLED display with a front-facing 12-
megapixel camera and a rear-facing 48-megapixel camera. However, it's
important to note this report refers to the 17e model that would be expected
to launch no earlier than February 2026, if it followed the same release
pattern as the iPhone 16e.

What will iOS 26 be like?

Apple upended its numbering conventions with WWDC 2025, and will match the
name of each new operating system to the year it's released. So when the next
wave of iPhones hits, they'll be running on iOS 26.

On the design side, the smartphone OS introduced during the big developer
showcase took a contentious approach dubbed Liquid Glass. Apple has been
scaling down the amount of transparency effects in the subsequent beta tests
of iOS 26, but it will still have a glass-like visual.

The feature list includes big and small updates. On the more impactful side,
the Phone and Photos apps have been redesigned. There will be several
features leveraging artificial intelligence, such as live translation
capabilities coming to Phone, FaceTime and Messages. Apple is also currently
testing a sensitive content warning for child accounts that will freeze
FaceTime video if nudity is detected by on-device machine learning tools. And
the company is also launching Visual Intelligence, which will use AI to
search for elements in an image.

iOS 26 also has a litany of minor, quality of life improvements. Group texts
are getting support for polls. And for the slow risers out there, iOS 26 will
finally let you escape the tyranny of the nine minute snooze alarm.

The next iOS is now available as a public beta. Here are our initial
impressions of the Liquid Glass design and other new features. iOS 26 is
compatible with all models back through iPhone 11.

What other products are expected to be released alongside the iPhone 17?

If Apple follows its usual pattern, the iPhone 17 will be announced alongside
new Apple Watch products. That would be the Apple Watch Series 11 (if Apple
sticks to the same naming scheme), and maybe an Apple Watch Ultra 3 and/or an
updated Apple Watch SE. (They'll all run watchOS 26, of course.) Other
possibilities ΓÇö and this is, again, speculation ΓÇö could include refreshed
Apple AirPods Pro (which received its last big update in 2022) and maybe new
AirTags trackers (first released in 2021).

The Apple rumor mill got a big shot in the arm this week thanks to the
reported inclusion of product ID numbers in recent beta software builds. Per
MacRumors, it's a laundry list of new hardware, including long-rumored
product updates like the Apple TV, HomePod mini, new Apple Studio Display
monitor and two fresh iPads.

Of course, even if that list is totally accurate, we may not see those
products until 2026 ΓÇö if ever. So don't expect all of products to share the
stage with the iPhone 17, especially since Apple likes to keep its star
performer at the center of attention.

That said, keep in mind that Apple has recently been having Mac-centric
announcements in late October (as it did last year to debut new M4 Macs), so
there's always the chance of another shoe dropping a few weeks down the road.


Update, August 22, 2025: Added new details about the colors of the rumored
TechWoven case.

Update, August 20, 2025, 7:12PM ET: Added new rumor about potential TechWoven
case for iPhone 17 series.

Update, August 18, 2025, 6:23PM ET: Added new rumor about the iPhone 17e
potentially having the Dynamic Island.

Update, August 15, 2025, 2:05PM ET: Added new rumor about the all-aluminum
chassis on the iPhone 17.

Update, August 13, 2025, 10:02PM ET: Added a list of the products that are
expected to be released alongside the iPhone 17s.

Update, August 11, 2025, 7:27PM ET: Added a render of a rumored new antenna
design for the iPhone 17 Pro.

Update, August 8, 2025, 4:43PM ET: Added new speculation and reports about
iPhone 17 pricing.

Update, August 6, 2025, 4:05PM ET: Added latest details about the potential
iPhone 17 event date.

Update, August 4, 2025, 5:23PM ET: Added latest battery leaks about the
iPhone 17 models.

Update, August 1, 2025, 8:15AM ET: Added new photos showing potential iPhone
17 colors.

Update, July 30, 2025, 11:08AM ET: Added latest leaks and rumors about the
iPhone 17, and updated information on the iOS 26 public beta.

Update, July 17, 2025, 4:40PM ET: Added latest information about iOS 26,
possible materials for the Air, and the color options for the different
models.

Update, March 17, 2025, 2PM ET: Added details about the rumored price and
features of the iPhone 17 Air.

Update, April 11, 2025, 3:45PM ET: Added details from Front Page Tech's new
video that claims to reveal details from a leaked iOS 19 build.

Katie Teague contributed to this story.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/i...
features-and-everything-else-to-know-about-apples-upcoming-lineup-
153024576.html?src=rss

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