This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
A handful of months back, renders and leaks of the iPhone 17 Pro redesign surfaced and spread like wildfire across tech enthusiast circles on the internet. The consensus was almost unanimous: the iPhone 17 Pro and the iPhone 17 Pro looked awful and Apple should be ashamed of itself for copying the Google Pixel phones.
People called the redesign ugly and said that the phones looked ridiculous. Apple fans on online forums shook their heads and wondered what had gotten into the company to think that this was a good look. Others said that the iPhone 17 Pro was destined for failure. Though I thought the design looked okay, I also cautioned against the change because I thought that Apple was giving up its enviable brand recognition for something that might make its phones look like their competitors.
The iPhone 17 Pro has been a massive success across the entire world and Apple has experienced considerable growth as well as clawing back market share in difficult regions like China. Why? What just happened? Weren’t people hating on the redesign just days before it was announced?
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The Apple effect
Apple gets many passes for its decisions. | Image credit — PhoneArena
What happened, you may ask. It’s something that I’ve decided to term the “Apple effect”, though I’m not the first person to have coined it. Simply put, Apple fans, and the smartphone industry at large, find it very difficult to ever hate on Apple for long. Everything that the company does eventually becomes accepted and, in some cases, standard practice.
After the iPhone 17 Pro came out, I got a good laugh out of frequenting those same online forums and seeing people say that the redesign was growing on them. In time, people stopped hating on it almost entirely, and even the weaker aluminum chassis — which is very prone to denting and getting scratched — now gets a pass. Instead, people who drop and damage their iPhone 17 are told to be more careful and to use a case.
Similarly, back when Apple removed the headphone jack and introduced the notch — two things I wish had never happened — the entire industry followed suit, much to my chagrin. The removal of the charging brick from the phone boxes was mocked at first as well, before other phone makers adopted this policy too.
Like I said, the Apple effect. However, there are good reasons for the popularity of the iPhone 17 Pro too.
The iPhone 17 Pro genuinely improved in some aspects
An all-aluminum chassis allows for better heat dissipation. | Image credit — PhoneArena
Apple’s record-breaking popularity with the iPhone 17 Pro isn’t all built around it getting passes, though. The entire iPhone 17 lineup is actually pretty decent, despite some of the problems that the phones have.
Yes, the iPhone 17 Pro had issues with cellular coverage at launch, despite the redesigned antenna that wraps around the much larger rear camera island. And yes, the Pro models are very susceptible to damage from light falls.
However, the iPhone 17 Pro has much better thermal control compared to its titanium predecessors due to the new chassis and vapor chamber, leading to less performance throttling over long periods of use. Of course, the new and faster chips are a nice bonus as well, as are the brighter display and increased RAM. Photo taking and video capturing have also seen noticeable improvements.
What, in your opinion, makes the iPhone 17 Pro excel?
In addition, the base model iPhone 17 is perhaps the best standard iPhone model that Apple has released in a very long time, and it has sold like crazy because of that fact. Now that ProMotion displays — 120 Hz LTPO screens — are standard across all models, the base iPhone 17 is an excellent bang-for-your-buck phone.
The base iPhone 17 also comes in fun colors like purple and green. | Image credit — PhoneArena
But, in my opinion, the single biggest reason that the iPhone 17 series has been so popular is the fact that it is something different after generations of design stagnation. Sure, there was the Dynamic Island, but the iPhone has looked largely similar for years. The iPhone 17 Pro changed that.
And that’s all it takes for most people. They might not like the redesign initially, but you bet they’re going to be getting the new iPhone regardless, because Apple can do no wrong.
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Abdullah loves smartphones, Virtual Reality, and audio gear. Though he covers a wide range of news his favorite is always when he gets to talk about the newest VR venture or when Apple sets the industry ablaze with another phenomenal release.
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