Regarding the iPhone 17 Pro:

> People who have no use for all these pro video recording features shouldn’t waste their money on it. Unless they want a big chunky iPhone with the best camera array and/or have money to burn.

I feel like people who “want the best camera array and have money to burn” probably describes a significant percentage of HN readers.

I’m honestly pretty excited that they’ve finally put the larger, high res sensor in all three iPhone cameras - which should result in pretty decent image quality across the entire 13 - 200 mm equivalent range. It’s a nice upgrade from my current iPhone which uses smaller 12 MP sensors for the ultra-wide and telephoto cameras - resulting in images that are noticeably soft and noisy.

I personally don’t consider the iPhone 17 Pro to be too big or chunky. I’m generally happy to sacrifice an extra millimeter of thickness for better battery life, and enjoy the usability of larger screen sizes. I know that a lot of people really want smaller phones, though, and I think it’s unfortunate that Apple cancelled the mini (and the smaller SE design). I guess it just wasn’t selling that well.

And finally, I’m at a point in my life where spending $1100 on a new iPhone every few years isn’t going to break the bank. And I also am able to give my current iPhone to family members, who should be able to enjoy it for many more years to come.

The air is too big and clunky from me.

Sent from my iPhone 13 mini, which is also Too Damn Big.

I’m got above average size human hands, which are too small even for the mini.

I should be firmly in this market. Indeed, I was about to order a 17 Pro just for the camera upgrade (coming from a 15 Pro).

Then I installed iOS 26.

I think I hate it. It might be the last straw.

I’m seriously considering taking the plunge and switching from iOS, which I’ve used since the iPhone 3G, to GrapheneOS on a Pixel 9 Pro.

It’s not just iOS (which is all three of worse, buggier, and slower) but also the direction of travel for Apple as a whole.

In my hands the 16 pro max looks small. I only care about battery life really and it is really not great so I wouldn't mind a double thickness: larger dimensions all over in favor of battery and screen. Huawei used to have one (in 2016 or so?) that was perfect: massive slab, super battery. But then we needed all slimmer and smaller (after the asia phablet hype?). Battery life on iphones is not good if you use it a lot. I am in a coworking space and literally all iphone users have to plug in somewhere during the day as most use it all day and it conks out: I am on my chinese android all day and end of the day it's 60%+. I guess my hands are an exception, but I cannot stand dragging all kinds of crap with me because everyone wants the thinnest, smallest devices.

>I personally don’t consider the iPhone 17 Pro to be too big or chunky. I’m generally happy to sacrifice an extra millimeter of thickness for better battery life, and enjoy the usability of larger screen sizes.

The difference in people's opinions about this are interesting. I've got larger than average hands (e.g. XL rubber gloves are a tight fit) and don't understand how normal people can handle large phones. I just moved from a 6.7" to a 6.2" phone and can't overstate how much more comfortable it is to handle the smaller phone.

It is unfortunate that phone manufacturers make the same phones as each other and that there is practically no variability on the market.

>I’m at a point in my life where spending $1100 on a new iPhone every few years isn’t going to break the bank

I hate this statement. I don't care if I can afford an expensive device if it doesn't provide the value over the lifetime of the product. Why do phones that only last 2-3 years cost as much as my laptop that can last longer than that and do so much more?

I'm with you. My phone is my primary computer. I want it to have the most computing power, battery life, storage, and camera performance possible. I don't really care for its looks as long as it meets a certain baseline.

Except it’s 24-100 mm. They’re scamming with the 8x “optical quality” claims. Every year the scams (aka marketing) get deeper, Apple wasn’t as bad in the past.

The “Air” one is probably a test if they could stop those camera scams and simplify the phone maybe focusing on some other things. It barely even matters, one lens is enough, if you need more you’ll want a proper camera anyway.

This year I’d say the phone itself looks like some joke. From orange colors — probably some “diversity” team though it would be funny, because they don’t like the president — to overall cheap looking design, which looks like some unfinished AI generated, 3D printed prototype. You can tell Ive is gone and nobody replaced him.

At least they still have some engineers who scored big with the M chips back in 2020, but barely anyone cares about the chips anymore, they’re all good enough today and competition somewhat caught up.