The first set of reviews are out for the new 6.3-inch base iPhone 17 model ahead of the full ‌iPhone 17‌ lineup launching on Friday.


As noted in our buyer's guide, the ‌iPhone 17‌ features Apple's biggest display upgrade to a non-Pro model in years, with a larger 6.3-inch display (up from 6.1 inches) and a 120Hz ProMotion display for refresh rates up to 120Hz. There are also some major camera improvements, faster performance, and big battery life gains. So what do these enhancements mean for users in real terms?

According to The Verge's Jacob Kastrenakes, the new display is a game changer:

In size, resolution, and specs, the iPhone 17's display is the same as what you’ll find on this year's Pro. And the most notable thing about the change is that the iPhone 17 finally has an always-on display. The feature works exactly the same as it does on the Pro phones, too. When you set the iPhone 17 down, the screen dims, showing a faint version of your wallpaper, widgets, clock, and notifications.

Being able to quickly glance at your phone for information is extremely handy and instantly makes the device a whole lot more useful.

TechRadar's Jacob Krol also had only positive things to say about the new 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR display, calling it "the star of the show."

Yes, the iPhone 17's 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR OLED display now supports ProMotion, meaning it delivers a buttery-smooth experience for scrolling, swiping, gaming, streaming, and even general navigation, as it will adjust on the fly from 1Hz all the way up to 120Hz depending on what you're doing. The iPhone 16, 15, and 14 before it were all locked at 60Hz, which wasn't a big deal if you weren’t coming from a 120Hz device, but this is a really nice upgrade.

The iPhone 17's display story is really about the sum of its parts. ProMotion, Always-On, and a slightly larger screen make for a great experience, and there's a serious amount of value to be found through this display alone. Oh, and it's also coated in Ceramic Shield 2, which makes it three times as scratch-resistant as the screen on the iPhone 16 – that's a win, especially if you're prone to dropping your iPhone.

The ‌iPhone 17‌ features two rear cameras consisting of a 48-megapixel Wide camera and a 48-megapixel Ultra Wide – an upgrade over the 12-megapixel Ultra Wide lens on the iPhone 16.

CNET's Abrar Al-Heeti particularly welcomed the camera upgrades and noted how the new features allow the ‌iPhone 17‌ to punch above the iPhone Air:

It's interesting to have more photo-taking flexibility on a less expensive iPhone model, since the iPhone Air can't take 0.5x photos or Cinematic mode videos. It's another way this baseline device makes a case for itself. Like the iPhone Air, the iPhone 17 takes 12-megapixel 2x telephoto images, which maintain a solid level of detail as you punch in. Photos default to 24 megapixels, but you can switch to 48 megapixels to capture a bit more detail.

The ‌iPhone 17‌ features 8GB of RAM – the least of all new iPhones – and Apple's base A19 processor, including a six-core CPU, a five-core GPU, and Apple's Neural Engine. The GPU cores also each have their own Neural Accelerator, which Apple says boosts the chip's ability to process AI calculations.

PC Mag's Eric Zeman put the phone through its paces and came away impressed:

I ran the phone through the typical battery of benchmark tests to see how it fares against the competition. Surprisingly, it runs a bit faster than the iPhone Air, which becomes much hotter than the 17 under load. Meanwhile, the Pro iPhones are about 10% faster, which isn't as big a difference as I expected.

The iPhone 17 buries the Pixel 10's Tensor G5 processor in testing, though Google tells us it designs its chips to run AI calculations, not perform well on benchmarks. The iPhone 17's A19 also bested the Galaxy S25's Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip in CPU performance, though it fell behind in GPU calculations.

Ultimately, the iPhone 17 and its combination of memory and A19 power are more than enough to handle all your apps, daily tasks, and Apple Intelligence requests. In my tests, the phone had no trouble generating AI images, conjuring up new Genmoji, and powering Apple Photos' editing tools.

Apple claims that the ‌iPhone 17‌ offers an additional 8 hours of video playback compared to the ‌iPhone 16‌. But how does that translate to real world gains? Tom's Guide's John Velasco reported a subtle improvement in his tests:

Our battery drain test reveals an improvement, albeit a small one. It reaches a time of 12 hours and 47 minutes, an improvement of 34 minutes over the iPhone 16. That might not sound like a whole lot, but it's worth remembering that the iPhone 17 has a larger 6.3-inch display this time.

I can affirm that I'm getting all-day battery life with a full charge. Roughly speaking, I'm seeing 15% battery life right before bed time. Most of my time was spent on checking emails, watching a few videos on my break at work, and looking through all of my social feeds. It's undoubtedly nowhere as close to offering the endurance I’ve been having with my iPhone 16 Pro Max for just about the last year, but most people will suffice getting through a work day.

I'm excited to report that Apple also upgrades the iPhone 17's charging speeds, with its 35W wired charging getting its battery to 39% in 15 minutes — and then to 71% in 30 minutes. That's a marked improvement over the iPhone 16, but Apple didn't stop there as it also adds 25W Qi 2.2 charging support.

Like the ‌iPhone Air‌ and iPhone 17 Pro models, the base ‌iPhone 17‌ can be pre-ordered now, starting at $799.

Videos

This article, "iPhone 17 Reviews: Choosing the Base Model 'No Longer Means Missing Out'" first appeared on MacRumors.com

Discuss this article in our forums

iOS 26's new Liquid Glass interface has been criticized for making some content illegible in certain circumstances, and now the UI design is reportedly causing another unusual visual problem for some users.


Liquid Glass adds subtle glowing effects to the corners of app icons, creating a dynamic glass-like appearance with depth and parallax effects. However, as noted by Gizmodo, this design choice can produce an optical illusion that makes icons appear tilted. Users impacted by the phenomenon report feeling disoriented, with some experiencing dizziness from the perceived slanting effect.

The issue has gained attention on Reddit, with one post receiving over 3,000 upvotes. "The frame glow effect makes apps look tilted, and it's really distracting," complained one user, while another said the update made them "feel drunk."

"All of iOS 26 is an optical nightmare," added another user. "It's horrible."

The tilting effect is most pronounced when icons are set to "Dark," "Clear," or "Tinted" modes against dark or black backgrounds, while colorful wallpapers seem to help mask the illusion by drawing attention away from the refractive corners.

Apple's transparency reducing options and the "Reduce Motion" setting (Settings ➝ Accessibility ➝ Motion ➝ Reduce Motion) don't seem to help minimise the illusion, with reports indicating most users fail to see a difference. Hopefully, Apple adds a dedicated control in a future update to adjust the icon effect that's causing the issue.

Are you suffering from the Liquid Glass optical illusion? Let us know in the comments.
This article, "iOS 26 Liquid Glass Design Makes App Icons Look Crooked, Report Users" first appeared on MacRumors.com

Discuss this article in our forums

Apple in October 2024 overhauled its 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, adding M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips, Thunderbolt 5 ports on higher-end models, display changes, and more. That's quite a lot of updates in one go, but if you think this means a further major refresh for the ‌MacBook Pro‌ is now several years away, think again.


Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has said he expects only a small performance boost for the next ‌MacBook Pro‌ refresh when new models with M5 chips arrive likely early next year, while the "true overhaul" for the laptop will come further down the line – either in late 2026 or early 2027. So if you are planning to skip the M5 ‌MacBook Pro‌, or you're just plain curious about what's two generations away, here are the biggest changes rumored to be coming to Apple's premium laptop line.


OLED Display

Goodbye, mini-LED

Several rumors have indicated that Apple is developing MacBook Pro models with OLED displays. Research firm Omdia in May 2024 claimed Apple is "highly likely" to introduce new MacBook Pros featuring OLED displays next year, while display analyst Ross Young in September 2024 said that Apple's supply chain is expected to have sufficient notebook-optimized OLED display production capacity in 2026 to bring the technology to MacBook Pro. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has said he expects the MacBook Pro to gain an OLED display "between the end of 2026 and early 2027." Compared to current MacBook Pro models that use mini-LED screens, the benefits of OLED technology would include increased brightness, higher contrast ratio with deeper blacks, improved power efficiency for longer battery life, and more.

Thinner, Lighter Laptop

Major Redesign

The switch to OLED displays could allow future MacBook Pro models to have a thinner design, and rumors suggest that is indeed what Apple intends. When the M4 iPad Pro was unveiled in May 2024, Apple touted it as the company's thinnest product ever. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman subsequently called the iPad Pro the "beginning of a new class of Apple devices," and said Apple was working to make the MacBook Pro thinner over the "next couple of years." Apple is reportedly focusing on delivering the thinnest possible device without compromising on battery life or major new features.

Notably, the MacBook Pro got thicker and heavier with its most recent redesign in 2021. A major highlight was the reintroduction of several ports that were removed in previous iterations in favor of chassis thinness. How Apple will make its redesigned MacBook Pro thinner without removing the functionality it reintroduced fairly recently is the big question.

Punch-Hole Camera

No More Notch

If you are fed up of the notch intruding on your Mac display, here's some good news. Apple plans to remove the notch from the redesigned MacBook Pro, according to a roadmap shared by research firm Omdia. The roadmap indicates that redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models will have a hole-punch camera at the top of the display, rather than the notch we've become accustomed to. A MacBook Pro without a notch would offer additional visible pixels on the screen, creating a more uninterrupted and cohesive display design.

Such a move would mirror Apple's iPhone evolution, since the iPhone's notch became the current Dynamic Island starting with the iPhone 14 Pro models in 2022. It's unclear whether the MacBook Pro would include Dynamic Island functionality or simply adopt the visual design, but the change would at least address long-standing user complaints about the notch, which physically ingresses into the macOS menu bar.

5G Modem

Cellular Connectivity

Earlier this year, Apple introduced the C1, its custom-built 5G modem chip which debuted in the entry-level iPhone 16e. More recently, Apple debuted the ‌iPhone Air‌ equipped with a new C1X chip, which is up to 2x faster than the C1. According to Apple, the C1X is the most power-efficient modem in an iPhone. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is considering bringing cellular connectivity to the Mac lineup for the first time. The company is said to be "investigating" the possibility of adding a second-generation C2 modem chip to a future Mac as soon as 2026, teasing the potential for a cellular MacBook Pro in the same year. The C1 and C1X modem chips are limited to sub-6GHz 5G speeds, but the second-generation version will support faster mmWave technology, according to Gurman.

M6 Series Chip

2nm Process

Before the MacBook Pro's major redesign, Apple plans to update the lineup with M5 series chips, likely in early 2026. The chips will be manufactured with TSMC's third-generation 3nm process, known as N3P, resulting in typical year-over-year performance and power efficiency improvements compared to the M4 series of chips. However, Apple's redesigned MacBook Pro models are expected to boast M6 chips, which could adopt a completely new packaging process.

According to one rumor, Apple's A20 chip in next year's iPhone 18 models will switch from the previous InFo (Integrated Fan-Out) packaging to WMCM (Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module) packaging. WMCM integrates multiple chips within the same package, allowing for the development of more complex chipsets. Components such as the CPU, GPUs, DRAM, and Neural Engine would therefore be more tightly integrated. While we don't know for sure, this could see Apple develop the M6 using the 2nm process while taking advantage of WMCM packaging to make even more powerful versions of its custom processor.

Touch Screen Display

On-Cell Touch Technology

Apple's first OLED MacBook Pro will feature a touch screen display, according to the latest from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The analyst says the panel will use on-cell touch technology. On-cell touch technology integrates the touch sensors directly into the display panel's top layer (the "cell") rather than requiring a separate, dedicated touch layer. Kuo says that the shift "appears to reflect Apple's long-term observation of iPad user behavior, indicating that in certain scenarios, touch controls can enhance both productivity and the overall user experience." The analyst says the OLED-equipped MacBook Pro with touch screen is set to enter mass production next year.
This article, "Apple's Rumored MacBook Pro Redesign: 6 New Features Anticipated" first appeared on MacRumors.com

Discuss this article in our forums

Apple's first OLED MacBook Pro, set to enter mass production next year, will feature a touch screen display, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.


In his latest post on X (Twitter), Kuo writes that Apple's much-rumored OLED MacBook Pro will incorporate a touch panel using on-cell touch technology. On-cell touch technology integrates the touch sensors directly into the display panel's top layer (the "cell") rather than requiring a separate, dedicated touch layer.

Kuo says that the shift "appears to reflect Apple's long-term observation of iPad user behavior, indicating that in certain scenarios, touch controls can enhance both productivity and the overall user experience."

Unsurprisingly, the analyst believes that the recently rumored low-cost MacBook, slated for mass production in the fourth quarter of this year, will not feature a touch panel, though specifications for a second-generation model could include touch support. Kuo anticipates the second-gen affordable MacBook model to arrive in 2027.

According to a recent report by Korea's The Elec, Samsung will supply the displays for Apple's first OLED MacBook Pro. What's less certain right now is the chip architecture that Apple will adopt for its OLED models.

It was previously rumored that MacBook Pro models with M5 chips would launch in late 2025. In July, however, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that Apple was "considering" pushing back the release of the next MacBook Pro models with the M5 series of chips until early 2026.

Gurman has since said he expects the MacBook Pro to gain an OLED display "between the end of 2026 and early 2027."

That would mean Apple updating the MacBook Pro line twice in the same year. However, there is precedent for such a scenario. Apple released models with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips in January 2023, followed by models with M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips in October 2023. So we could get the M5 generation in January 2026, followed by the OLED panel-equipped M6 generation in October 2026.

Either way, the OLED MacBook Pro models are expected to feature more significant changes, including a thinner design and a smaller notch. Apparently we can now add touch screen support to that list, too.
This article, "Kuo: OLED MacBook Pro to Feature Touch Screen Display" first appeared on MacRumors.com

Discuss this article in our forums