The iPhone 17 series is right around the corner – barring any super-last-minute rumors, we’ve pretty much heard everything we’re likely to hear about Apple’s next-generation handsets before the company’s “Awe Dropping” event kicks off on September 9.
As such, we’ve seen some reasonably likely rumored colors for the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max, and I’ve got to say I’m a bit underwhelmed. We’ve seen the usual black, white, grey, and silver options for each handset, but for want of better phrasing, the other choices just aren’t doing it for me.
Now, these upcoming iPhones are likely to be the best iPhones ever released and some of the best phones on the market. But aesthetics matter, and they go a long way in making an iPhone fashionable in the short term and memorable over the years.
The rumored iPhone 17 Air, for example, seems to be getting an off-white or gold-tinged color that looks similar to the iPhone 16 Pro’s Desert Titanium finish, as well as some sort of blue colorway. Neither gives the first new iPhone variant in three years as much pop as you might expect.
As for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, the only really notable color is the orange finish floated by various online tipsters. It’s… fine. The new orange color is neither as audacious as the glowing gold iPhone Pros of years past, or as beautifully subtle as something like the iPhone 14 Pro’s Midnight Purple finish.
Things are slightly better for the base-model iPhone 17, which could be getting a blue, purple, and green option alongside the typical black and white. By the looks of supposedly leaked images, these hues strike a mid-point between the pastels of the iPhone 15 and the near-neon tinge of the iPhone 16. These do have a bit more pizzazz than the higher-tier models, but that raises its own question (more on that later).
So, none of these colors are leaping out at me. What’s a tech fan to do?
The lost art of the mid-year refresh
Up until recently, a lack of compelling colors at launch wasn’t the end of the story. In the era of the iPhone 12, iPhone 13, and iPhone 14 lineups, Apple was known to release a new color halfway through the cycle, usually one that stood out from the rest of the bunch.
For the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini, this was a bold purple, while the entire iPhone 13 series got a new green option half a year after release. The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, meanwhile, got a very bright yellow.
As well as pushing the current-gen iPhone back into the news cycle, saving a new color for a mid-year refresh gave hope to those who weren’t so taken with the launch colors.
However, the iPhone 15 series came and went with no new mid-cycle color option, and unless Apple wants to drop a new iPhone 16 color weeks before launching the iPhone 17, the current generation will likewise have come and gone without a post-launch update.
I think that’s a shame. Apple is at its best when it embraces a sense of fun, and the mid-year colors were genuinely some of the most appealing on the lineup (for as loud as the yellow iPhone 14 is, I do know some people who sought it out). I’d love to see the mid-cycle refresh make a comeback for the iPhone 17 series, from the base-model iPhone 17 up to the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
Pro phones deserve fun colors
You might have noticed that Apple’s previous mid-year colors were most often released to the base-model iPhones, with only the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max getting a nice new Alpine Green color option.
This raises another question – why is it that the more expensive iPhones usually lack variety when it comes to color options? Surely there are power users who would enjoy using a more vibrant handset.
Some might say that the new orange color I complain about above fills this role, but to my eye, this looks like more of a muted ‘burnt’ orange than anything too vibrant.
The saving grace of the iPhone 17 lineup’s aesthetic profile may prove to be the standard model if the rumored colors referenced above turn out to be accurate – it’d be nice to see Apple bring some continuity to the lineup and add a muted green iPhone 17 Pro, or perhaps a lilac variant. It’s not like the grey and black models are going anywhere, nor should they.
At the end of the day, what color your phone comes in doesn’t have any bearing on how well it runs, but for some users, self-expression ranks as highly as function. I’m keen to see Apple revive the mid-year refresh to bring some more personality to the next generation of iPhone – let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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