Now that Apple’s “Awe dropping” event has concluded, and the iPhone 17 series and iPhone Air have now arrived in customers’ hands, come to think of it, there was one rumor that (thankfully) did not come to fruition.
If we look back on the rumors for this fall’s iPhone lineup, you may have remembered that several months ago, several sources, including the Wall Street Journal, expected price hikes across the iPhone lineup, primarily due to ongoing tariffs in China. Shortly afterward, Jefferies analyst Edison Lee followed up on that rumor. He went into more detail as he indicated that we could see a $50 price hike across the lineup. Other sources said that the base iPhone 17 model would not see a price hike, but the rest of the lineup would. And now, we’ve got into the starting prices and storage configuration; TrendForce claimed that the smaller iPhone 17 Pro could start with 256GB at a higher starting price of $1,199, and thus, both iPhone 17 Pro models would see a $100 price increase. As you can see, there were several conflicting rumors about what each model in this fall’s iPhone lineup would start at.
Fast forward to Apple’s recent event, it turned out that the iPhone 17 Pro starts at $1,099, but not so fast, looking at the starting price alone doesn’t tell the whole story. If we take a look at the iPhone lineup prior to the event, the prices for all the storage tiers are as follows:
- iPhone 16*: $799 (128GB) / $899 (256GB) / $1,099 (512GB)
- iPhone 16 Plus*: $899 (128GB) / $999 (256GB) / $1,199 (512GB)
- iPhone 16 Pro: $999 (128GB) / $1,099 (256GB) / $1,299 (512GB) / $1,499 (1TB)
- iPhone 16 Pro Max: $1,199 (256GB) / $1,399 (256GB) / $1,599 (1TB)
For years, the smaller iPhone Pro model started at $999, but for a while, it started with 128GB of storage, which felt a bit limiting, especially when recording higher-quality video. Consequently, Pro users would opt for a higher storage tier to better suit their needs, such as 256GB. With the recent announcement, Apple effectively dropped the 128GB tier for the iPhone 17 Pro, so that device now starts at 256GB. (The Pro Max model already ditched the 128GB storage tier starting with the iPhone 15 Pro Max.) So you would still be paying the same price for the same amount of storage on the Pro model as before. Furthermore, prices for 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage tiers remain the same for both iPhone 17 Pro models, not to mention that the iPhone 17 Pro Max added a new 2TB option for $1,999.
If we take a look at the iPhone Air, which should be considered as a “spinoff” model, that device starts at $999 with 256GB of storage, which is the same price the iPhone 16 Plus was at for the same amount of storage. As you can see, Apple didn’t really increase the prices for any of this fall’s iPhone models, but rather, Apple is bringing even more value to those models. Best of all, if we take a look at the base iPhone 17*, it now starts with double the storage as before at 256GB, and yet, it retains the same starting price as before at $799, bringing the best value we’ve seen in an iPhone in years. With several new features introduced on all of the iPhone 17 models and iPhone Air, we can still enjoy more features as before without paying extra, and there’s no better time than now to upgrade to a new iPhone if you’re coming from an iPhone from around three years ago.
Both the iPhone 17 series and iPhone Air are available to order today.
*iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, and iPhone 17 include a $30 connectivity discount that requires activation with certain carriers, and would otherwise be $30 higher for other customers.
