Feed: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Feed Link: https://www.engadget.com/
---

Title: iPhone 17 release is rumored for September: Everything you need to
know about the 'thinnest iPhone ever' and the Apple fall event

Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2025 23:28:05 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/i...

The closer we get to Apple's reveal of the iPhone 17 lineup, the more excited
we are to see what's different from the previous iPhones. The newest
smartphones will come equipped with the latest iOS 26 features. Since we
still have to wait at least a month (presumably) until the iPhone event, we
can at least speculate what the new phones will look like. As with most
unreleased iPhone models, 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 Cupertino in September.

What are the latest iPhone 17 rumors and reports?

Will the iPhone 17 Pro have better wireless signal strength thanks to an
updated antenna design? That's the implication from Majin Bu, whom MacRumors
classifies as a "hit-or-miss leaker." The individual posted a render on X
today (see below) that shows a new antenna system that wraps around the
iPhone 17 Pro's supposedly wider rear camera bump.

iPhone 17 Pro New Antenna Design

Full Article:https://t.co/nivzKiY8xy pic.twitter.com/jgbwLteaPO

ΓÇö Majin Bu (@MajinBuOfficial) August 11, 2025

Again, this is a render, not a real-world photo, and ΓÇö like all such
stories ahead of the official announcement ΓÇö should be treated with the
usual grain of salt. 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.

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 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-langauge 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.)

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.

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.

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...
september-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-thinnest-iphone-ever-and-the-
apple-fall-event-153024456.html?src=rss

---
VRSS v2.1.180528