Apple on Tuesday rolled out its next generation iPhones, which include a new ultra-thin model and a slight price hike for one of its high-end models, while the company feels the squeeze of a global trade war.
The iPhone 17 line-up includes a new slimmed-down model that will adopt the “Air” name that Apple already uses for its sleekest iPads and Mac computers. In what has become an annual rite for Apple, all four new iPhone 17 models will feature better cameras and longer-lasting batteries than last year’s lineup. The iPhone 17 will all boast at least 256 gigabytes of storage, doubling the minimum amount from the last generation.
“We are raising the bar again,” Apple CEO Tim Cook boasted in front of a crowd gathered in an auditorium named after the company’s late co-founder, Steve Jobs, located on its campus in Cupertino, California.
Grappling with tariffs
The new iPhones are the first to be released since President Donald Trump returned to the White House and unleashed a barrage of tariffs, in what his administration says is an attempt to bring overseas manufacturing back to the U.S. — a crusade that has thrust Cook into the hot seat.
All the iPhone 17 models are still expected to be made in Apple’s manufacturing hubs in China and India, exposing them to some of Trump’s tariffs.
Analysts believe the additional fees on iPhones coming into the U.S. increase the pressure on Apple to raise prices to help protect its profit margins on its most marquee product.
Without giving a specific reason, Apple will charge $1,100 for the iPhone 17 Pro, an increase of $100, or 10%, from previous versions of that model. The iPhone Air will start at $1,000 — the price of last year’s iPhone 16 Pro.
Apple is sticking with the same starting price for the basic iPhone 17 at $800 and the iPhone 17 Pro Max at $1,200.
All four models will be in stores Sept. 19.
Apple’s shares closed down 1.5% Tuesday amid gains in the broader stock market, an indication that investors might be worried the company didn’t do enough to prop up its profits amid the trade war.
A breath of fresh iPhone Air
The release of the iPhone 17 Air created the biggest buzz of the day as Apple found a way to pack in most of the punch of its Pro models while coming up with a fetching design that Forrester Research analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee will prod more trend-conscious consumers to splurge on the latest fashion in tech devices. The Air model is just 5.6 millimeters wide compared to 8 to 9 millimeters for the other iPhone 17 choices.
“There were plenty of crackles and one big pop,” Chatterjee said of Tuesday’s event.
One of the crackles came with the introduction of new features aimed at the selfie culture. The iPhone 17 models include a front camera with more megapixels for crisper photos, along with an “Center Stage” option that will take advantage of a wider field of view and a new sensor that will enable users to take landscape photos without having to rotate the iPhone.
Although most of the upgrades to the iPhone 17 are similar to the incremental improvements of recent years, Apple appears to have done enough to “bring a sense of newness to the iPhone, which has remained the same for too long,” said PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore.
Apple also unveiled its latest smartwatches, including a health tool that is supposed to help detect potential hypertension, and its next generation wireless AirPod headphones.
Looking for a sales accelerator
Apple has been trying to accelerate its growth after several years of lackluster sales growth that has still been enough to maintain its status as a moneymaking machine while raising questions about its ability to innovate. Those doubts, combined with the uncertainties swirling around tariffs, are, one of the reasons the company’s market value has dropped by 6% so far this year while the tech-driven Nasdaq composite index has gained 13%.
While the iPhone 16, released last year, fared reasonably well, the models didn’t sell quite as well as analysts had anticipated because Apple failed to deliver all of the artificial intelligence features it had promised, including a smarter and more versatile Siri assistant. The Siri improvements have been pushed back until next year.
“To truly differentiate and outperform its competition, Apple will have to crack AI as a new contextual user-interface,” predicted Thomas Hussan, another analyst for Forrester Research.
The global trade war has compounded Apple’s challenges.
Both Trump and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have repeatedly insisted that iPhones be made in the U.S. instead of overseas. It’s an unrealistic demand that analysts say would take years to pull off and would result in a doubling, or even a tripling, of the iPhone’s current average price of about $1,000.
Cook tried to placate Trump by initially pledging that Apple would invest $500 billion i n the U.S. over the next four years, and then upped the ante last month by adding another $100 billion to the commitment. He also gifted Trump a statue featuring a 24-karat gold base.
That kind of diplomacy has helped insulate Apple from Trump’s most severe tariffs. However, with the iPhones being brought into the U.S. still facing duties of about 25%, some analysts speculated the company would raise prices to help preserve its hefty profit margins. But for the most part, Apple and other major smartphone makers such as Samsung and Google are sticking with the same prices as last year.
