The iPhone 16e has been released. So the rumour mill has turned its attention to the iPhone 17, which is expected to be announced during September 2025. While it’s still early days, here’s a round up of what people think we can expect.
Updated on 25 February 2025
New Wi-Fi chip
Analyst ming-Chi Kuo says the next iPhone will come with an all-new Apple-designed Wi-Fi chip that replaces the chips Apple sources from Broadcomm. This has the potential to boost battery life and reduce costs for Apple as it faces an increasingly volatile manufacturing environment.
No C1 for the full iPhone 17 range
Kuo also adds that only the rumoured iPhone 17 Air will come with Apple’s C1 modems with the rest of the range retaining chips sourced from Qualcomm.
Processor, memory and storage improvements
With the new iPhone SE 4 expected to run the same processor, or a very similar processor, as the iPhone 16, we can expect Apple to give the next iPhone an upgrade if only to differentiator it from the entry-level iPhone.
RAM was boosted to 8GB last year to support Apple Intelligence so we can expect that to either hold steady or, perhaps get a further boost to 12GB or 16GB.
Storage will likely stay at the same range of storage options between 128GB upon to 1TB. Possibly, the 128GB option will disappear but only if Apple can do that without increasing prices drastically.
Charging boost
MacRumors reports that a supply chain analyst has found evidence that the next iPhone will support faster charging over wired connections. While MagSafe can charge at 25W and current wired connections support 30W, it’s rumoured that we’ll get 35W over USB-C assuming you have a charger that can deliver those extra watts.
With the iPhone 16e skimping on MagSafe and only having Qi2 support, which is less efficient and slower that MagSafe, it will be interesting to see if then iPhone 17 Air misses out on MagSafe. That would suggest the agents used in MagSafe may have an effect on the C1 chip.
Something in the air
An ultra-thin version of the iPhone dubbed the iPhone Air is anticipated. This is an interesting rumour as, if 9to5Mac is right, it will only have a single camera.
Camera changes
Every iPhone generation comes with an improvement to the camera tech and the iPhone 17 won’t be an exception.
The square camera array we’ve seen for the last few years may be replaced with a rectangular bar across the back of the iPhone. That makes sense, if only so the new model looks different to the previous model to encourage people who care about having the latest phone to be able to show off that they have a new iPhone.
Apple pundit Mark Gurman says [paywalled] this year’s iPhone will shift the focus to video quality rather than solely putting the spotlight on photography.
In past years, Apple has focused more heavily on the camera’s photo-taking abilities. This year it will stress improvements to video recording. One of the goals for 2025’s iPhone line is to get the vlogging community and other video creators to move away from standalone cameras and use the iPhone for even more of their work
Material changes
Last year’s iPhone was all about titanium. It was on billboards, the Apple website and boasted about during the product announcement. While it sounds impressive, titanium is expensive.
MacRumors suggests that Apple will go back to aluminium for most of the new iPhones with the possible exception of the rumoured iPhone Air.
As you’d expect, given we’re about six months away from an actual announcement, there’s plenty of time for Apple to tinker with things and throw the supply chain analysts who track the materials and components Apple uses off on tangents.
What’s certain is that Apple will release a new range of iPhones. WWDC, when Apple announces what we can expect from the next version of iOS, will tell us more as the software code alludes to hardware versions and software features that indicate new of canned hardware.
We’ll update this post as we learn more.
Anthony is the founder of Australian Apple News. He is a long-time Apple user and former editor of Australian Macworld. He has contributed to many technology magazines and newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.