Did you notice how short the iPhone 17 launch event was last night? Just over 70 mins.
It was odd to see Apple rattling through the products so speedily – when the iPhone 17 appeared after just over 30 mins, I firmly expected it to be because there was a fancy new product coming at the end… the iPhone Air. It would have loads of time dedicated to it, as Apple changed the course of its history (or something).
And lo, it did appear, but not as the fabled ‘One More Thing’ (which, in fairness, Apple doesn’t do any more) but halfway through. Unveiled with the same speed as the AirPods Pro 3, new Apple Watches (three of them) and the iPhone 17, it clearly wasn’t meant as the headliner.
Then came the iPhone 17 Pro, unveiled in around 14 minutes. Last year the Pro unveil got over 25. ‘Whew!’ I thought, mopping my brow and loosening my tie. ‘The iPhone 17 Pro Max must be incredible this year, given how much time Apple is dedicating to it’.
I wasn’t confident though. We’d had a couple of mentions of the Max around it also having great thermal management and packing the longest battery life in an iPhone ever – that made it feel like there wasn’t a big, Max-flavored reveal coming.
And suddenly they appeared: the prices, the traditional end point of an iPhone launch). I was left slightly reeling at the abrupt end – was there no more on the iPhone 17 Pro Max?
Well, a tiny amount – it sneaked in as a little picture when the specs were summarized, and a passing comment at the end saying it had 2TB of storage. Hopes of it bringing 8K video recording, an all-new screen tech or some new headline-making feature were gone.
A mixed history
So given Apple had the time to speak longer, and clearly has the skill to make any product seem exciting and vibrant (even if it is just a bigger 17 Pro), why didn’t it get more air time?
I get that Apple basically offers the larger phone for choice – and making too much of a big deal of the Pro Max being the longer-lasting, wider-screened device risks diminishing the impact of the ‘normal’ Pro.
But that misses a trick, a chance to lure more potential customers in. In 2023, when the iPhone 15 range was unveiled, Apple put a more advanced camera system in the 15 Pro Max – boosting the optical zoom to 5x.
It also gave it double the starting storage of the iPhone 15 Pro (256GB to 128GB) despite having the same $200 price gap as usual. As such, it offered buyers more of a choice: do you want to spend a bit more and get a larger display and the best camera?
Apple went even further in 2020, giving the iPhone 12 Pro Max a 47% larger sensor, with the camera module noticeably larger as a result.
Given there are a lot of Apple fans out there who just go for the best of the best, no matter what, this seems like an easy upsell for the largest iPhone each year. Not dramatically different (still most of the same cameras, power and screen technology) but a few tweaks that make the extra money worthwhile.
Still the best phone to get
I will still always be drawn to the iPhone Pro Max if I’m buying a new Apple handset. I know that it’s bigger and heavier (and weightier than ever this year, at 231g) but if you can get past the heft, then it’s a stellar choice.
The 6.9-inch display is so much more useful for media on the go than the 6.3-inch option on the Pro. However, the larger battery (six hours’ longer on video playback) is worth the trade off alone in my opinion.
Yet this year, the only ‘benefit’ of the iPhone 17 Pro Max is the option to equip it with 2TB of storage – and pay a dollar under $2000 for the option. If that much storage is going to be on offer, and the iPhone 17 Pro has all the same features, why not offer the capacity there as well?
After all, they’ve both had 1TB options together for a long time – putting the 2TB choice on the Pro Max only says to me that it’s for hardcore video shooters. In which case, why not boost the specs of the camera a little bit to match?
In reality, the reason for the lack of differentiation is that this is a year where Apple has slightly boosted specs across the board, refined the design (the aluminum unibody and wider camera bump is certainly a departure) but not added anything ground breaking to the mix.
If the pattern is followed, with the 12 Pro Max and 15 Pro Max getting better hardware, then perhaps we’ll see the iPhone 18 Pro Max get to shine next year… will it be the first to get a fourth camera sensor?
