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Phones · Apple iPhone

Apple iPhone 17 Pro

33owners with an opinion
44%of verdicts positive
12/15positive/negative since 2024
1 yrslongest happy owner
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for design and performance; criticized for reliability and software.

What owners wrote

Likes itOwned 1 year
The maximum capacity of my iPhone 17 pro is still at 100% after 192 charges, that's after 1 year of usage. The extra battery life does reduce the amount of charges I have to do so that helps with the battery life. I'm not sure where the capacity will end up after 5 years, but I think my iPhone 14 pro was at less than 95% at this point. Apple refused to replace just the battery on that one because of a small crack in the screen.
Likes it
I think a number of hybrid development systems still default to iPhone-only. I'm wondering how LLMs will affect that. I modified my app to present its menu on the side for Duo. It's a bit of a pain, but an LLM helps. I am still waiting on user feedback from the field. I feel as if it's fairly ugly. Personally, I'm in no hurry to get one, myself. I have an iPhone 17 Pro and an iPad Mini, which do it for me now. I would like to combine them, but I'm waiting for the inevitable "teething issues" to work out, first.
Doesn’t like it
Golden gate has been ok-ish for me. I am more annoyed by the constant render stutters in iOS. It got worse with iOS 26 (tested on iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air) and it is still pretty bad with iOS 27 (tested on iPhone Air and iPhone 18 Pro). Some apps like the App Store or Mastodon are a complete stutter fest, even when you let them preload all assets. But it even happens in very basic apps like the Settings app. Meanwhile my woefully underpowered Pixel 10 Pro (on par with a flagship from a few years ago) with GrapheneOS is butter smooth in nearly every app.
Doesn’t like it
iphone 17 pro: 0. none of the options you describe really disable LG and the glitches it introduced. 1. you don't need to switch LG to clear to reduce transparency. you can use reduce transparency with any LG theme. you just need to reenable "reduce transparency" after changing the theme. why? ask Tim. 2. in Podcasts you can tap between Home and Library to see the selection jank around the middle New tab. happens every time. and if you tap to change episode sorting oldest to newest, then change it back, it 100% of the time won't ever change back again, unless you exit and enter the show again. and semi daily when switching to it from lock screen the now playing layout will be garbled, either just the bottom card or the entire now playing screen is empty (at which point i usually restart the app). and of course janky layout shifts and adjustments when switching between screens like search, show, episode, transcript, etc (which additionally also all involve sliding motion despite reduce motion + prefer fade on, but i will let that slide) the list goes on
Doesn’t like it
I kept an iPhone Mini until an App I need for work started consuming so much memory it became unusable on it (iOS would kill it after 15s). Even then, I raised ticket after ticket with support to get them to fix their app – which they did, then slipped again, for months. Now I own a 17 pro, which feels like a brick in comparison but has 12 GB of RAM instead of 4. I really miss my mini.
Doesn’t like it
I have an iPhone and an Android phone and I don't see the gap at all when it comes to software. Quite the opposite, I think iOS regressed a lot with iOS 26 to the point where I see quite a lot of render stutters on an iPhone Air and 17 Pro. Besides that, Android is much more configurable (especially OneUI). Apple is still the indisputable leader when it comes to hardware though. Great SoC, great cameras, great build quality. Too bad it doesn't have GrapheneOS :).
Likes it
Yea I just swapped my jogging/beach iPhone from an Xr to an iPhone 12 and wow, it's so much better than the Xr and pretty much as good as my "proper" phone, an 17Pro. It's got 4G RAM instead of 12G but it performs almost as well. Xr->12 is a huge leap in performance and I noticed it straight away. But the 12 against the 17 is much harder to see the difference. Less redraw of icons on the main screen is the primary thing I've noticed.
Likes it
This is not even close to true. I took a bunch of photos side by side with the iphone 13 pro and the 17 pro. The 17 pro was unmistakably much better, particularly on the telephoto, it wasn't even close. There was a very clear improvement in detail and sharpness, and not in a crunchy post processing way, the sensor is simply larger and higher resolution. Now I think all the iphone cameras still suck compared to an actual camera, but the improvement over the last 10 years has been dramatic.
Likes it
$2K starting price is rough. I’ve upgraded my iPhone every year since my first phone, the 3GS. It’s one of a few “splurge”-type things I allow myself. It’s a hobby and just fun to play with the new hotness. This year might break the cycle. I don’t care for the 18 Pro colors, I still love my orange 17 Pro, and I’m not sold on the Duo (functionality or price). I might still end up with a Duo but I’m very much on the fence. I’ll tell myself it’s for development/testing reasons, or just to play with the newest offering but I’m just not sure. I worry this will suffer from the same lack of developer interest as the AVP did. Yes, it’s very different from the AVP and SwiftUI will almost certainly make this process easier but I’m still not sure.
Likes it
Well I buy the latest pro phone, and you are right I don't pay store price. AT&T gave me the 17 Pro for free when I traded in my 3 year old 14 Pro. And my monthly cost of the cell plan with them is only $30 plus taxes and fees which works out to about 36/mo, so it seems like a great deal in the end. Basically I pay 36/mo, and every 3 years I trade in my phone for the latest pro model and it only costs me sales tax and some $30 "activation fee".
Likes it
Been using it for a podcast app I have been developing for half a year lol (I hope I publish it by version 27) and I can confirm it’s real fast. Splitting the audio in multiple segments and firing it up without hitting the maximum limit of concurrent decoding streams makes it blazing fast. Fair enough you loose the cut, but it’s good enough for just podcast. In one minute it chews through one hour of audio. This on an iPhone 17 Pro.
Likes it
I like Apple's products. I just purchased an iPhone 17 Pro. It does not mean I cannot still criticize them because of their monopolistic practices. I was doing Apple support since 1995, I saw how they changed. I mean, they certainly would never have given Trump a gold bar to forgive this case now, would they? https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/21/tech/apple-sued-antitrust-doj...
Likes it
I really hope Steve Lemay fixes liquid glAss in macOS and iOS 27. I've held off upgrading past Sequoia because of it, or wanting to buy M4/M5 Macs. I've tried and absolutely love the iPhone 17 Pro hardware, but the camera app is an unusable monstrosity.
Likes it
Lemay has been at Apple for 27 years and has a track record that implies the future of Apple software under his leadership is extraordinarily bright. I don't share the optimism. I mean, he was there when Liquid Glass was designed and presumably in a good position if he became an executive leader now. Sure, Alan Dye may be the face, but Liquid Glass was made by a very large department. And it is not like Apple's design rot started with liquid glass, this recent post shows that it is regression after regression after regression (which is also my impression after having used Macs since 2007): https://pxlnv.com/blog/window-chrome-of-our-discontent/ It is sad that Apple is still extremely good at hardware (I have the iPhone 17 Pro and the design is stellar), but software has become worse and worse over the years. They can only get away with it because almost all of the rest of the industry is even worse (macOS is still a glass of ice water if you are in the hellscape that is Windows).
Likes it
Even 50hz is fine. I'd go so far as to say, barring any medical or sensitivity issue, if any person prioritizes a 120hz screen they are a victim to habit or marketing. It adds zero value to the experience, and you're just looking for things to be annoyed by / brag about. Modern displays are already cutting edge. They have improved in every way that's meaningful in the last 35 years. Refresh rate is just not meaningful enough. "35 year old performance" it most certainly is not. You just seem hellbent on using this arbitrary (to most people) benchmark as a filter. FYI, I run my 17 pro almost exclusively on power saving mode to cap frame rates because the battery life extending by 30 mins is more infinitely more valuable than frame rate over 50. I've capped my fancy monitor's frame rate to 60 so it matches my macbook air. And it's all fine in this world, nothing here is "one notch above unusable".
Neutral
I’m right where you are. Very happy Apple customer since my first PowerBook G4. Currently have an M1 Max, an iPhone 17 Pro, the iPad Pro, HomePod, Apple TV, and Watch Ultra. All the _just works_ feeling and reliability seem to be gone. Tahoe is so unstable that I now restart the Mac every day, when in the past it happened on software updates only. Apple Music is another huge mess, I can’t comprehend how can it be so unreliable. Looking for exits as well and kind of looking forward to migrating to Graphene OS, self-hosted Immich, and Navidrome
Doesn’t like it
Somehow, with 12GB of RAM, I can't get my iPhone 17 Pro to keep more than a few safari tabs open without having them refresh when I come back from an app or two, and it makes me want to throw my phone across the train (Where the internet often cuts out!). A lot of software has been squandering the massive hardware gains that have been made. I hope this changes when it becomes a lot harder to throw hardware at the problem. I also wonder what this means for smartphone-esque devices like the Switch 2. If this goes on long enough I won't be surprised if they release a 'lite' model with less RAM/Storage and bifurcate their console capabilities, worse than what they did with 3DS > 2DS .
Likes it
I held on to my 13 Pro until the 17 pro came out, so I wouldnt be surprised if a lot of this is people finally going "ok maybe now" and the 16 just lands on the biggest group. I found myself using both phones as I transitioned off the old one and barely noticing the difference mind you, which is a good sign in my eyes. I think Smartphones for the last 6 to 8 years are finally very stable. More stable than a Windows 11 laptop on Hardware people in the 2000s could only dream of.
Doesn’t like it
It’s incredibly sad to watch Google abandon the values that inspired so much trust and belief that there is a better way to build a company. Long time Pixel user here who has always believed the story that Apple has the closed, but refined, higher quality experience and Google has the slightly freer, but coarser UX. I was convinced to make the switch this year and the Apple iPhone 17 Pro + whatever iOS version is, by far the worst phone I’ve ever owned. Photos are worse, low light is worse, macros are worse, the UI is laggy, buggy and crashes. The keyboard and autosuggest is shockingly bad. Incredibly popular apps on iOS (YT, X, etc) are just as bad and often worse. iMessage is a psyop. The absolute worst messaging app in history with zero desktop access for non-Mac users?! If you’re on Android, and especially pixel, please know that Apple has completely given up and no longer executes at the level you remember from 10-15 years ago.
Doesn’t like it
> why is the UI so slow / explorer slow / bluetooth slow this is a legitimate complaint, but I see latency absolutely everywhere. my iPhone 17 Pro dropped frames out of the box . now 3/4 unlocks drops frames. I'm not defending Windows, it's obviously in decline -- but trying to identify root cause. There used to be curmudgeon engineers on staff who would berate team members over blocked UIs, dropped frames, input latency over 30ms . Dave Cutler made a rubber stamp that rejected (then paper) code reviews with "Size is the Goal". That culture has retired. Web-dev's design interactions targeting 500-2000ms, so to them everything on the OS looks fast . Adding 150ms to right-click is unnoticeable . Like 15kHz audio to a boomer or purple to the color blind . It's easy to beat up on MS, because most open-source devs have despised them. But Microsoft had a very high bar for engineering until about 10 years ago ( you may laugh, but remember they were writing OS's that last 40+ years) . Apple had an extremely high bar until about 5 years ago. This isn't just one bad product, but an entire industry lowering its standards.