Eshu Marneedi

The calm before the storm

Image: Apple.

In more ways than one, Apple’s Tuesday “Awe Dropping” event was everything I expected it to be. The company announced updates to the AirPods Pro, refreshed all three Apple Watch models, and made standard improvements to the iPhone lineup. From the surface, nothing is new — it’s just another year of incremental design updates, sometimes following Apple’s “carry-over” product strategy, where it eventually brings once-Pro-level features to the consumer-end devices. That’s an apt summarization of iPhone 17 and the Apple Watch SE.

In another dimension, however, the iPhone lineup underwent its largest reworking since iPhone X with the introduction of iPhone Air, a device so different from the typical, years-old, tried-and-true iPhone playbook that it omits the version number entirely — the first iPhone to do so since the iPhone SE. iPhone Air is a drastic rethinking of how Apple sells the iPhone, and it requires more analysis than any of Apple’s other Tuesday announcements.

The result is an event that remains hard to conclude. It serves as a return to the status quo for a company beaten and battered from the Apple Intelligence fiasco over the last year, and the new phones all seem like wonted upgrades over their predecessors, but Apple tried something new with the iPhone this year — something the company is typically reluctant to do. The iPhone lineup is more complicated than ever after Tuesday, both for those interested in technology and business and for the millions of people who, unbeknownst to them, are about to be inundated with advertisements for the new devices on television. But that brief complication might serve a larger, more important purpose for the company.

Apple Watch: It’s Just Good Capitalism

The Apple Watch models are the easiest to cover because of how little has changed. Knowing how infrequently people replace their Apple Watches, I don’t see that as a problem as much as a sign of platform maturation. The Apple Watch was perhaps one of Apple’s quickest product lines to reach maturity, and now it sits in a comfortable flow where each year’s updates are just good enough not to bat an eye. The Apple Watch Series 11, this year’s model, was rumored for a redesign a few years ago, but that hasn’t happened. The watch looks identical to last year’s design, Space Gray and Rose Gold make a triumphant return, and they even have the same S10 system-in-package as the prior models. (It isn’t unprecedented for Apple to reuse an SiP, but it usually at least renames the SiP each year. This year, it name-dropped the older processor as being the “latest” onstage.)

The two main new features come — naturally for the Apple Watch — in the health department, and they’re both purely powered by new software: hypertension risk notifications and a new sleep score. Beginning with the Apple Watch Series 9, the device will proactively detect and alert users of hypertension, or high blood pressure. Apple Watch models use a heart rate monitor that takes readings by sending pulses of light into the skin and measuring how much light is reflected back onto a sensor, a process called photoplethysmography, or PPG. This sensor, called a pulse oximeter, is now designed to analyze how “blood vessels respond to beats in the heart,” according to Dr. Sumbul Ahmad Desai, Apple’s vice president of health technology. Dr. Desai also said Apple expects over one million users who previously were unaware of their hypertension to receive a notification within the first year of the feature’s introduction.

From a purely humanitarian perspective, there are no notes to describe the brilliance of this feature. It will probably save lives, and we’ll see the faces of those saved lives in next year’s keynote presentation through a “Dear Tim” video, as per usual, because that’s just good capitalism. But more interestingly, this feature isn’t limited to any of the new Apple Watches; in fact, the new Apple Watch SE doesn’t even include it. People with an Apple Watch Series 9 or Apple Watch Ultra 2, following approval from the Food and Drug Administration, will be able to use it after a software update. Apple chose this event to highlight the feature instead of the software-focused Worldwide Developers Conference to make it appear as if the Apple Watch Series 11 is somehow a more impressive update than it is.

Another software feature coming to Apple Watch models Series 9 and up is the sleep score, which uses sleep duration, “bedtime consistency,” restlessness, and sleep stage data to generate a score of how well a person slept, assumedly 1 to 100. The feature is almost a one-to-one knockoff of Oura’s Oura Ring Sleep Score, and it is entirely calculated via software, yet Apple said nothing about it coming to older Apple Watches because it didn’t fit the narrative. The only genuinely new updates to this year’s hardware are the more scratch-resistant cover class and 5G connectivity, the latter of which is presumably destructive for battery life in addition to being practically worthless. It’s good capitalism, but I’m starting to feel that it’s genuinely misleading.

The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is a more notable improvement, but only by a little. The only new hardware feature, aside from 5G and the new cover class, is satellite connectivity, which is nothing short of an engineering miracle. I remember just a few short years ago when I wrote off the possibility of the iPhones 14 Pro being able to connect to satellites just for Apple to (embarrassingly) prove me wrong, and now the comparatively minute Apple Watch Ultra can send text messages and location data with no cellular service. It’s truly astonishing; Apple’s engineers ought to be proud. I have no use for satellite connectivity since I barely venture beyond the outskirts of suburbia, and I don’t know how impactful this feature will be — since I assume most hikers and outdoorsy types carry their phone out into the wilderness anyway — but it’s a marvel of engineering and ended a rather drab Apple Watch segment on a high note.

Again, it’s not that I think the Apple Watch ought to be updated every year with new flashy features, because that’s just gimmickry hardly anyone wants. But I also find it disingenuous at best and false advertising at worst to present software features coming to older models alongside the new hardware as if they’re exclusive or new. I had the same qualm when Apple presented the iPhone 16 lineup as “made for Apple Intelligence” when the same features were available on iPhone 15 Pro, and now that Apple’s most popular Apple Watch is advertised as having features people could already have with a software update, I feel it’s in bad taste. But it’s good capitalism and certainly Apple’s pastiche.

The Apple Watch SE remains a product in Apple’s lineup and has been updated to support the always-on display from six years ago, fast charging capabilities from four years ago, and the temperature sensor from three years ago. It’s clearly one of Apple’s most popular and beloved products.

All three watches have the same prices as their prior models — no tariff-induced price hikes, despite them all being made in China.

AirPods Pro 3

The AirPods Pro 2 aren’t just the best wireless earbuds on the planet — they’re one of Apple’s best, most well-designed products ever. I’d say the only product remotely close to them is the 14-inch MacBook Pro post-M1. I wear mine for at least 12 hours a day and love them so much that I have two pairs to cycle through when the battery dies on a set. Not once in the hundreds — probably thousands — of hours I’ve used them have they stopped playing, malfunctioned, or sounded less than great. I’ve never had to do as much as reset them once.

It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to predict my anticipation for AirPods Pro 3. This year’s model, the first update to the AirPods Pro since 2022, has three notable (and exclusive) upgrades: foam ear tips and better active noise cancellation, heart rate sensing, and better battery life. The earbuds have also been reshaped slightly to fit more ear types, which is perhaps the only concern I have with this model. The AirPods Pro fit well in only my right ear, and the left bud frequently slips out of my left ear, even while sitting still.¹ AirPods 4, which the new model seems closer to in size and shape, don’t fit either of my ears, and the older first-generation AirPods usually leave my ears red and achy. I hope this isn’t the case with AirPods Pro 3.

The new ear tips and better microphones account for the improvements in noise cancellation, which Apple says is the “world’s best in-ear active noise cancellation,” a claim I’m inclined to trust. The AirPods Pro 3 do not use a new version of the H-series processor AirPods use for audio processing, however; they still use the H2 chip from the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4, which is reasonable because the H2 is significantly better than anything else on the market. If anything, it should’ve been put in the AirPods Max last year. The new silicon ear tips are “foam-infused,” which is the industry standard to obscure most ambient noise, and the better microphones improve transparency mode, too.

Apple emphasized the heart rate sensor in the new AirPods Pro more than I (or, I think, anyone else) care about. It only turns on when a user begins tracking a workout through the Fitness app on iOS, and statistics are displayed live on the iPhone as the workout progresses. Real fitness nuts will probably still just buy an Apple Watch, but for people who only occasionally work out and wear their AirPods Pro anyway, I think it’ll be a nice touch. It’s certainly no reason to buy a new pair, though — I think the only reason to is the better noise cancellation and modest improvements to bass, for people who care for that.

The most interesting new feature that I probably won’t ever end up using, but nevertheless makes for a nifty demonstration, is Live Translation. When enabled, AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3 updated to the latest firmware will turn on noise cancellation, begin listening through the microphones, and play a translated audio snippet. It isn’t in the other speaker’s own voice or anything, because it’s Apple and getting accurate translations is about 95 percent of the battle anyway, but it seems to work adequately. Translations are displayed for the opposing speaker to read on an iPhone through the Translate app, though, which negates much of the point unless both speakers are wearing AirPods Pro — an unlikely case that Apple over-accounted for in the presentation.

In this case, both speakers’ iPhones can be synced up so they can chat normally and have their responses translated and piped into the other person’s ear. I wondered how Apple would go about this use case: Some other products make the primary speaker hand a worn-in, used earbud so they can communicate, but Apple’s solution is perfectly Apple: just assume the other person has a set of AirPods Pro. That’s probably a good assumption in a country like the United States, but this feature is probably intended for international travelers. How many random people in Mexico or France can you reliably assume have AirPods Pro? Default smartphone app translation is generally understood not to be impolite and is probably the way to go in most cases.

The AirPods Pro 3 are nowhere near as substantive an update as the AirPods Pro 2 were a few years ago, but I still think they’re worth paying $250 for. AirPods are some of Apple’s best products, and for supposedly two times better noise cancellation, marginally improved sound quality, and perhaps better battery life in certain circumstances — not to mention fresh ear tips and USB Type-C charging for those who didn’t buy a second set when the AirPods Pro 2 were updated with USB-C in 2023 — they’re just a steal, especially if you use them a lot.

Finally, the iPhones 17

The iPhone 17 lineup comprises three models: iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. (I’m intentionally omitting the iPhone Air, which (a) warrants its own section as the pièce de résistance of Tuesday’s event, and (b) is not a 17-series iPhone.) Each of these is largely unremarkable, but iPhone 17 is seldom discussed yet is probably what most people will end up buying at carrier stores when it’s time to upgrade. It has a larger display made of Ceramic Shield 2, which offers better scratch resistance²; better battery life thanks to the A19, which has a better graphics processor than the A18; fast-charging capabilities up to 60 watts, enabling the ability to charge to 50 percent from zero in 20 minutes (finally); a ProMotion, always-on display that refreshes between 1 and 120 hertz (finally); and a new square front facing camera sensor that enables Center Stage.

The front-facing camera is probably all most people will ever care about because the square sensor means people don’t need to rotate the iPhone to capture a landscape selfie. All photos, portrait or landscape, are taken at a 1-to-1 square aspect ratio and then cropped to 4-to-3. People can, of course, still rotate the device to capture a landscape shot, but it’s the same shot anyway, just with different cropping. Center Stage allows more people to fit in the frame, which I’m sure will be appreciated by the masses. Much of the commentary about this feature centers around the evergreen question of “Why?”, but normal people, unlike technology pedants, use the selfie camera way more than any of us think and have more friends to fit in a single shot than all of us combined.

iPhone 17 Pro isn’t as nondescript as iPhone 17, mostly because of its new design. Apple swapped back to aluminum this year, making iPhone 17 Pro the first high-end iPhone to use it since iPhone 7 in 2016. Apple switched to stainless steel beginning with iPhone X, but offered the mid-range iPhone — then iPhone 8, briefly iPhone XR, and now the non-Pro model — in aluminum with a glass back for wireless charging. All iPhones 17 are now made with aluminum, but iPhone 17 Pro is engineered using a unibody design with a cut-out for the now-Ceramic Shield back glass. The side rails aren’t attached to the back — they are the back, including the camera plateau.³ The aluminum encompasses the whole device, and I think the result is astonishingly atrocious. If it weren’t for the resplendent Cosmic Orange colorway — which appears to be the same shade as the international orange from the Apple Watch Ultra — I would’ve called iPhone 17 Pro the ugliest iPhone ever designed.

Some thoughts on the color: I’m glad Apple finally chose to give Pro iPhone buyers a color option beside some dreary shade of gray. The Silver iPhone looks as good as it always did and is a neutral color option for the less eclectic, and the blue iPhone is what I expect Generation-X business-casual executives who wear beige half-zips and khaki slacks in October will opt for. There is, peculiarly, no standard black option, which is an interesting choice and led to some unfortunate discourse, but the Silver model appears to be the new neutral standard. I hope to see more esoteric colors come to the Pro lineup, even if they aren’t as popular (they won’t be), because they add an element of fun to the device. I’m excited about my orange phone.

Some thoughts on the material: The rationale behind moving back to aluminum is that it helps cool the processor down, since titanium conducts heat better than aluminum. Anecdotally, both my iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro ran considerably warmer than previous iPhones, especially in direct sunlight or in the summer. I still think the few extra degrees of heat are worth it because titanium was such a lovely material and made the phones feel premium, substantive, and light. It’s by far my favorite material Apple has ever used in an iPhone, and I’m disappointed to see it has been thrown out. I even liked it more than stainless steel because the glossy edges would scratch from the moment you took the phone out of the box. The iPhones 17 Pro also have a vapor chamber to cool the processor down even more during peak workloads, but that just makes me wish Apple had figured out a way to make titanium work.

Keeping with tradition, the Pro-model section of the presentation centered around the A19 Pro, which has an extra graphics core than the A19, along with a better neural engine, and the camera array. All three sensors – main, ultra-wide, and the 4× telephoto — are 48 megapixels, which means the telephoto sensor has received its first major update since the tetraprism lens from iPhone 15 Pro Max. Because of its increased size, the sensor can now capture more light, which hopefully means less switching back to the main camera in low-light conditions. The sensor can also be cropped to an 8× zoom length without sacrificing image quality due to pixel binning⁴, a flexibility that didn’t exist with the lower-quality sensor. I also hope this improves macro photography, since the ultra-wide has remained more or less unchanged since iPhone 13 Pro’s update in 2021. Regardless, my favorite focal length remains 2× since it is the closest to the focal length of the human eye, 50 millimeters.

The iPhones 17 Pro are otherwise largely unchanged. They have some new pro camera features, including the ability to capture from multiple lenses simultaneously, and they carry over the same improvements from iPhone 17, including faster charging, a brighter display with a new antireflective coating made with Ceramic Shield 2, and the Center Stage front-facing camera. The only caveat is a slight tariff-inspired pseudo-price increase: While the standard iPhone 17 still starts at $800, it comes with 256 gigabytes of storage by default. iPhone 17 Pro is less fortunate; it now begins at $1,100. It’s the first iPhone price increase in eight years, so I find it hard to complain about, especially since it comes with double the storage.

The iPhones 17 are the status quo, which is a somewhat comforting bit of regularity.

iPhone Air, Not an iPhone 17

Something that stood out to me a few minutes after the iPhone Air segment of the event began was that the presenters weren’t saying “iPhone 17 Air,” but just “iPhone Air.” Lo and behold, iPhone Air is not an iPhone 17 model, but a device released alongside iPhone 17. The only iPhone without a number or version, aside from the original iPhone, was the original iPhone SE, which then incremented by generation (i.e., “iPhone SE (second-generation)”). The lack of a version number signals, at least to me, that iPhone Air is a one-time ordeal designed to be replaced by the eventual iPhone Fold, and that it’s simply a prototype for Apple’s newest technologies. Hours after the keynote, that intuition holds up. If I had to guess, iPhone Air is one and done, and that’s why it’s not an iPhone 17-series model.

iPhone Air is the “thinnest iPhone ever made,” but not the thinnest Apple product, the M4 iPad Pro. Still, though, it really does look impossibly thin, almost awe-inspiring. It reminds me of something Jony Ive, previously Apple’s chief designer, would construct. My core “Why?” question still hasn’t been answered, but I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t look en vogue. For a brief moment, my writer hat flew off with the wind, and I just had to admire the gorgeousness of the device. iPhone Air is the only iPhone this year to be made with titanium, and the only iPhone at all to use polished titanium, similar to the high-end Apple Watches. The result is a gorgeous finish that makes the device look like a piece of jewelry.

This work of engineering is possible because (a) iPhone Air is a significantly worse iPhone specifications-wise than even iPhone 17, and (b) iPhone Air’s internals are all packed into the camera plateau, which extends beyond the device by a fair bit. The camera plateau is hardly for the camera (singular) — it houses the motherboard and all other components. Even the Face ID hardware through the Dynamic Island is shifted downward slightly so it can all fit in the plateau. The rest of the device is consumed by a thin battery, and no iPhone Air models, including internationally, ship with physical SIM card slots, allowing more space for the battery.

Thus begins the compromises: battery life, cameras, speakers, the processor, everything but the display and design. iPhone Air’s battery life is apparently so bad, despite the battery occupying the entire body of the device, that Apple sells an additional $100 MagSafe Battery Pack just for iPhone Air; it is literally not compatible with any other iPhone model. The way it was presented was straight out of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” too: Right after John Ternus, Apple’s vice president of hardware engineering, said iPhone Air has “all-day battery life,” the event moved onto the accessories section, where the first one presented was the battery back. I couldn’t have written it better myself. If I had to guess, “all-day battery life” means four hours of screen-on time doing typical smartphone tasks at a maximum, and probably even worse when hammering the camera or watching video on cellular data.

Despite using an underclocked, binned version of the A19 Pro, iPhone Air’s battery life is still so short that Apple used two new in-house components in the device: the N1 Wi-Fi chip and the C1X cellular modem. The C1X is a faster, presumably more expensive variant of the C1 that debuted in iPhone 16e this spring, which Ternus says delivers two times faster cellular speeds while using less battery power. The C1 processor is remarkably competent when compared against Qualcomm’s processors, and it’s no surprise Apple wants to test it out with a broader audience in a device with more power constraints before shipping it in the iPhone 18 series next year. The only reason I could come up with for why the C1X wasn’t used in the iPhones 17 this year was because it doesn’t support millimeter-wave 5G, a small omission that would probably kill iPhone Air’s battery if it were included anyway.

The N1 is a standard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity chip with full support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, but it is much more power efficient than the off-the-shelf processors used in the iPhones 17. Apple’s philosophy under Tim Cook, its chief executive — one I largely agree on — is that the company should own all of its technologies, including silicon and displays. Apple silicon has led the market both in terms of sheer performance and, importantly, performance per watt, and while the M-series Mac processors are the canonical example, Apple’s A-series design philosophy can take significant credit for the iPhone’s success. It wouldn’t be nearly as performant nor profitable to manufacture without Apple silicon, and it makes sense for Apple to apply the same idea to connectivity processors. iPhone Air is a guinea pig for these new processors.

iPhone Air only has room for one camera: the standard, 48-megapixel main sensor, with a 2x optical-quality zoom preset. I think the omission of an ultra-wide lens is criminal for an iPhone of this stature, and while I understand the physical constraints of this device, it really just makes it feel like the lab rat of the lineup. Even iPhone 11, released in the first year of the ultra-wide lens, had a sensor comparable to iPhone 11 Pro. iPhone Air is a compromise used to not only test buyers’ patience with fewer features at an advanced cost but also a learning exercise for Apple to fit as many state-of-the-art components as possible in a small form factor. It began this exploratory process with the iPhone mini in 2020, and after three years of iPhone Plus comfort, it needed to do something to prepare for the folding iPhone rumored to arrive next year.

I strongly believe iPhone Air is a test of Apple’s engineering and manufacturing prowess. It’s half of Apple’s folding iPhone. It’s missing a camera, it has a worse processor, and it has bad battery life, because it’s only half of the story. That half makes for remarkable advertisements, beautifully rendered art, and impressive talking points. Apple can talk iPhone Air up as much as it wants — it should talk it up as much as it can. For the first time in eight years, a non-Pro iPhone is the pinnacle of iPhone engineering, and that’s ultimately why Apple decided not to name it an iPhone 17. It isn’t an iPhone 17; it isn’t designed to be a thinner counterpart to the other models, and it isn’t even meant to be looked at alongside them. It’s a different phone entirely — an experiment.

As an experiment, iPhone Air is one of a kind. As much as I want one for myself, I know it’s not the device for me, and I believe most people will reach that conclusion, too. It’s a work of art, perhaps like the Power Mac G4 Cube, which put form over function just to make a statement. iPhone Air makes a statement in a sad, dreary, beige world of smartphones, and it ought to be commended for that. It’s Apple at its finest. If this is the foundation for the folding iPhone due next year, I can’t wait to see what Apple has in store. For $1,000, iPhone Air isn’t for most prospective iPhone buyers: It only really appeals to nerds, and when I look at it from that direction, I can’t believe it was made at Cook’s Apple. But the more I think about it, iPhone Air is Cook’s iPhone. It’s a sacrosanct evaluation of the company he built on Steve Jobs’ foundation — it puts his supply chain, designers, engineers, and marketers to the test. That’s how it ought to be perceived — the most important shake-up of the iPhone lineup since its debut.

As we look back at this event in a few years, maybe even a decade, it seems like we’ll think of it as a turning point. Either Apple boldly innovated, or it flopped. I haven’t seen an iPhone event garner this much commentary and excitement since iPhone X, and I’d like to think it’s all to plan.