I recently visited the Apple store as I had an appointment with Apple support for my phone. Waiting in front of the store, I noticed a small line to the side of the building. I walked to the security guard standing at the doorway, as all of a sudden a man cut me off and said in a demanding way, “Excuse me. Can I buy the new iPhone 17 Pro?” This then got me thinking. What is the deal with this new phone, and are these really the type of people who are buying it? 

As we all know, Apple releases a new iPhone every year with slight improvements to each one. From Apple’s website, the 17 has standard improvements like longer-lasting battery life, faster and better graphics with a 50 percent faster Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), and a 3 times more scratch-resistant screen. But the main big difference the iPhone 17 Pro has is its camera. The camera can zoom up to 200mm, which is a lot compared to the 16. But I don’t want to get all technical with this phone. If you’re buying this phone for its camera, I guarantee you can get an actual camera for cheaper. But what if instead of dropping an iPhone every year, Apple drops a new phone every once in a while. 

Remember when the PlayStation 5 came out? Well, if you didn’t know, PlayStation dropped their new console on Nov. 12, 2020. This was one of the most exciting times in gaming and technology history. As soon as the console dropped, it was sold out on the first day. Acquiring a PlayStation 5 during 2020-22 was almost impossible. There are many reasons for this as it came out during Covid, which did affect the production rate. But the main reason the console acquired this much attention was because the last PlayStation (PlayStation 4) was released way back on Nov. 15, 2013. With that long of a wait, it created so much attention. So what if Apple did this? 

Let’s say if Apple released their iPhone every five years. This would actually make a new iPhone exciting and interesting to tune in. People would be ready to wait five years for a new and exciting phone. And if Apple did this, they could actually spend their time making extreme and fun new changes instead of small tweaks to their already existing iPhone. 

Someone came up to me to ask, “Is the new iPhone any better?” To answer that … sure. This new iPhone 17 is technically the best phone you can get from Apple. And if you want to go get the iPhone 17, go for it. It’s a nice phone. But sorry folks, nothing insane about it.