As Apple struggles with a worldwide trade war, the tech giant unveiled its next generation iPhones on Tuesday, including a new ultra-thin model and a modest price increase for one of its high-end models at the Apple event 2025 on Tuesday.
A new, slimmed-down edition of the iPhone 17 lineup will go by the “Air” moniker that Apple now employs for its most streamlined iPads and Mac computers. All four of the upcoming iPhone 17 models will have improved cameras and longer-lasting batteries than the previous year’s model, as has become a yearly tradition for Apple. All models of the iPhone 17 will have at least 256 gigabytes of storage, which is twice as much as the previous generation.
In front of a strong crowd assembled in an auditorium named after the late co-founder of the company, Steve Jobs, in its headquarters in Cupertino, California, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook proclaimed, “We are raising the bar again.”
Tariffs
Cook is in the hot seat because of the new iPhones, which are the first to be released since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House and imposed a slew of tariffs in what his administration claims is an effort to bring production back to the United States from overseas.
Apple’s production facilities in China and India are still anticipated to produce all the iPhone 17 versions, subjecting them to some of Trump’s tariffs.
According to analysts, Apple is under pressure to raise prices to preserve its profit margins on its most marquee product because of the higher costs on iPhones entering the US.
Apple will charge $1,100 for the iPhone 17 Pro, a $100 (or 10 percent) over its earlier model, without providing any explanation. The iPhone Air will retail for $1,000, which is the same price as the iPhone 16 Pro from the previous year.
Apple is continuing to charge $800 for the entry-level iPhone 17 and $1,200 for the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
All four models of the iPhone will be available in stores from Sept 19.
Despite increases in the overall stock market, Apple’s shares closed at 1.5 percent on Tuesday, suggesting that investors may be concerned the company did not do enough to support its profits during the trade war.
The new iPhone Air
The iPhone 17 Air’s release generated a huge buzz because Apple managed to combine majority of the features of its Pro models with an attractive design that will encourage more trend-conscious buyers to spend money on the newest technology. The other iPhone 17 models are 8 to 9 mm broad, whereas the Air model is only 5.6 mm.
Forrester Research analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee said, “There were plenty of crackles and one big pop,” speaking about the Apple launch event.
The launch of new features targeted at the selfie culture was one of the crackles. The iPhone 17 models come with a new sensor that allows users to shoot landscape shots without rotating the iPhone, a front camera with more megapixels for sharper images, and an option called “Centre Stage” that will utilise a broader field of view.
Apple seems to have done enough to “bring a sense of newness to the iPhone, which has remained the same for too long,” noted to Paolo Pescatore, an analyst at PP Foresight, even though most of the iPhone 17’s upgrades are comparable to the small enhancements of previous years.
Apple also announced its next generation wireless AirPod headphones and its newest smartwatches, which have a health function that may assist identify possible hypertension.
Apple looking to pick up speed on sales
After years of slow sales growth that was sufficient to keep it a money-making machine while casting doubt on its capacity for innovation, Apple has been attempting to pick up speed. These uncertainties, along with the uncertainty surrounding tariffs, are among the reasons why the tech-driven Nasdaq composite index has gained 13 percent this year while the company’s market value has fallen 6 percent so far.
Apple failed to provide all the artificial intelligence features it promised, including a more intelligent and adaptable Siri assistant, which is why the iPhone 16 models didn’t sell as well as analysts had predicted, even if it did rather well when it released last year. The Siri updates have been postponed until the next year.
Thomas Hussan, another analyst at Forrester Research predicted, “To truly differentiate and outperform its competition, Apple will have to crack AI as a new contextual user-interface.”
Apple’s problems have been made worse by the global trade war.
The demand that iPhones be manufactured domestically rather than abroad has been raised by both Trump and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on numerous occasions. Analysts estimate that meeting this unattainable demand would take years and cause the average price of the iPhone, which is currently around $1,000, to double or possibly triple.
To appease Trump, Cook first promised that Apple will invest $500 billion in the US over the following four years. Last month, he increased the amount by an additional $100 billion. He also gave Trump a statue on a base made of 24-carat gold.
Apple has benefited from this type of diplomacy by being shielded from Trump’s harshest tariffs. However, several experts speculated that the company would increase prices to help maintain its substantial profit margins because the iPhones are still subject to tariffs of roughly 25 percent when they are imported into the US. However, Apple and other big smartphone manufacturers like Samsung and Google are largely maintaining their prices from the previous year.