Archive for September 9, 2025

Tuesday, September 9, 2025

iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max

Both models feature A19 Pro, the most powerful and efficient chip for iPhone yet, enabling the advanced camera systems, next-level mobile gaming, and Apple Intelligence. Built with an Apple-designed vapor chamber that is laser-welded into a strong, light, and thermally conductive aluminum unibody, iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max deliver Apple’s best-ever performance and an enormous leap in battery life. Three 48MP Fusion cameras — Main, Ultra Wide, and an all-new Telephoto — offer the equivalent of eight lenses, including the longest optical-quality zoom ever on iPhone at 8x, and the innovative 18MP Center Stage front camera takes selfies to the next level. With new industry-first video features built for pro filmmakers and content creators, including ProRes RAW, Apple Log 2, and genlock, iPhone integrates even more seamlessly into the largest and smallest of productions. Both models feature the Ceramic Shield 2 front cover with 3x better scratch resistance, and for the first time, Ceramic Shield protects the back of iPhone.

iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are available in three beautiful new finishes — deep blue, cosmic orange, and silver.

Finally, some good Pro colors.

Deionized water is sealed inside the vapor chamber, which is laser-welded into the aluminum chassis to move heat away from the powerful A19 Pro, allowing it to operate at even higher performance levels. The heat is carried into the forged aluminum unibody, where it is distributed evenly through the system, managing power and surface temperatures to deliver incredible performance while remaining comfortable to hold.

I wonder how much faster the A19 Pro will be in the Pro vs. the Air due to the better thermals.

Previously:

Update (2025-09-10): See also: Hacker News.

Hartley Charlton:

Apple introduced titanium to the iPhone with the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max back in 2023, with the change even becoming the device’s marketing tagline. While the devices were said to be more durable, they also suffered from complaints about overheating.
The titanium frame provided excellent rigidity and durability, but aluminum is lighter and offers better heat dissipation, which Apple has prioritized alongside the introduction of the A19 Pro chip and a new vapor chamber cooling system. Aluminum’s thermal conductivity is substantially higher than titanium’s, helping to distribute heat away from critical components under heavy workloads.
Titanium’s machining complexity, slower production speeds, and higher scrap rates may have also contributed to the decision. Titanium frames require specialized tooling and precise CNC milling, while aluminum is less expensive and easier to produce at scale.

Andrew Abernathy:

So the new iPhone 17 Pro has a 4x optical zoom at 48 MP (as opposed to the 5x / 12 MP optical on the 16 Pro), and it center-crops to achieve the touted 8x?
Center-cropping 48 MP yields 12 MP optical, so from that perspective, identical optical resolution as on the 16 Pro, yet higher zoom.
Still, the 12 MP crop is probably fundamentally noisier; I doubt the physical sensor is 4x the size of the 16 Pro sensor. Which means relying on improved cleanup of the capture.

Update (2025-10-09): Frank A. Krueger:

The iPhone 17 Pro, even with its giant plateau, still can’t be set down on a surface without rocking side to side. Would it really kill them to make the lens protrusions symmetric?

Ryan Jones:

Apple needs to put USB3 in all iPhones simply for the transfer process. Just spent a miserable 90 minutes in store, with 50 other customers, to transfer my data 2 inches via the cloud. Colossally stupid.

Jason W:

All the hate for this [orange] color is dead wrong. Best looking iPhone color I’ve ever seen.

Juli Clover:

iFixit today disassembled the iPhone 17 Pro for one of its teardown videos, showing the device’s internal components, like the new vapor chamber cooling system that distributes heat from the A19 Pro chip throughout the aluminum frame.

Sebastiaan de With:

On the Main camera, don’t expect huge changes. I found detail to be somewhat more natural in the Ultra Wide camera, but even here it was somewhat random-seeming if the results were truly consistently better. Overall, image processing pipelines are so complex now that it’s hard to get a great idea of the changes over just a week. The images overall felt a bit more natural to me, though — although I still prefer shooting native RAW and Process Zero shots if I have the option to.
As I mentioned in the earlier section, it is truly noticeable that the 2× mode on the Main camera is a lot better. Not only is the result sharper, it also just looks less visibly ‘processed’; a real win considering Apple claims this is actually due to more processing!
[…]
This, then, might be the first ‘workhorse SLR’ of the iPhone family, if the regular iPhone is a simple Kodak Brownie. In that, some of the simplicity that delighted in the first iPhone may have been lost — but the acknowledgement that complexity is not the enemy is a significant and good step. As a camera, it is first and foremost a tool of creative expression: gaining permission to become more fine-tuned for that purpose makes it truly powerful.

Austin Mann:

Over the last year I’ve found myself using ProRAW less because I’m constantly impressed by the power and flexibility of Photographic Styles.
[…]
This year, we got a new Undertone style called Bright. It adds contrast, brightens faces, enhances foliage, and still protects the highlights in the sky.
[…]
The biggest distinction between the 16 Pro and the 17 Pro is the improvement to the 4x Telephoto. It’s a better focal length and a big jump in resolution. The 8x is a great way to punch in even further at 12MP, and I’m sure I will use it a ton. If you find yourself constantly wishing you could get closer to your subject, this alone is worth the upgrade.

Jason Snell:

In terms of CPU, the step from A18 Pro to A19 Pro seems smaller than normal, though there may be extenuating circumstances. Single-core performance in Geekbench only increased 3% in my preliminary tests, which is the lowest gain I’ve seen in years. Multi-core performance, on the other hand, went up by 9%—much better, even if it’s a less impressive gain than any in the last four generations.
[…]
This is the biggest increase in the overall GPU Compute score in six generations, and even longer if you divide the score by the number of GPU cores available. The A19 Pro generates Geekbench GPU Compute scores 65 percent faster than the A17 Pro of just two years ago, with the same core count. It’s been an impressive couple of years on the GPU front.

Matt Birchler:

The A19 Pro transcribes about 60% faster than the A18 Pro.

Juli Clover:

The scratch test results suggest that iPhone 17 Pro owners won’t have to worry about the kind of scratching seen on iPhone models in Apple retail stores, but the camera is an area of concern. It is likely to get scratched, so if you’re worried about that, you might want to use a case to prevent it. The coating on the iPhone 17 Pro models is thin, so more significant drops could cause damage in other areas.

Juli Clover:

The marks on the iPhone 17 Pro models that people have noticed at Apple retail stores are caused by the chargers that Apple uses, Apple confirmed today.

Matt Birchler:

To illustrate this more closely, here’s a comparison of what the detail level is when using the 8x mode in the Camera app verses cropping to the same degree after the fact.
If you still want to crop later, that’s fine, but it’s plainly clear to me that if you need more zoom, you should do it in the Camera app because it will maximize the data you have to work with after the fact.

Hartley Charlton:

The first reviews of the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max have now been published by selected media outlets and YouTube channels, offering a closer look at the device ahead of Friday’s launch.

Mike Sorrentino:

While it’s not widespread, some iPhone 17 Pro owners say that audio plays quietly and that they hear odd noises when playing music.

iPhone Air

Apple (video, MacRumors):

Apple today debuted the all-new iPhone Air, the thinnest iPhone ever made, with pro performance. iPhone Air features a breakthrough titanium design that is elegant and light yet strong, with an innovative internal architecture that enables the latest iPhone experiences. The back of iPhone Air is now protected with Ceramic Shield, and the front cover uses Ceramic Shield 2, delivering 3x better scratch resistance, making iPhone Air more durable than any previous iPhone. iPhone Air also features a stunning 6.5-inch Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion up to 120Hz. With the most Apple-designed chips in an iPhone — the powerhouse A19 Pro, N1, and C1X — iPhone Air is the most power-efficient iPhone ever made. Paired with the redesigned internal architecture and software optimizations, iPhone Air has fantastic all-day battery life. A powerful 48MP Fusion Main camera enables the equivalent of four lenses with incredible image quality, and the innovative 18MP Center Stage front camera takes selfies to the next level.

[…]

iPhone Air is the thinnest iPhone ever made at 5.6mm, and it is incredibly light, with a large, stunning display. The grade 5 titanium frame is strong, with an elegant high-gloss mirror finish, and a new plateau on the back that is precision-milled on both sides to house the cameras, speaker, and Apple silicon. This maximizes space for the battery to deliver remarkable all-day battery life. The thin design also features the Action button, so users can easily access a variety of functions with just a press, and Camera Control, to quickly launch the camera or enable visual intelligence.

It’s $999 vs. $799 for the iPhone 17 and $1,099 for the iPhone 17 Pro. It’ll be interesting to see whether this is popular. To me, it’s impressive but not very appealing. Looking for a smaller phone, it seems like they shrunk the wrong dimension (and increased the other two). I’m more interested in the Pro camera and battery life than the Pro processor. Even if the prices were the same, I would probably choose the iPhone 17 over the iPhone Air.

Previously:

Update (2025-09-10): See also: Hacker News.

Rui Carmo:

And yes, all the iPhones in the US are now eSIM-only, and that worries me. Fortunately that is (for now) not the case in the EU.

[…]

You become completely dependent on your carrier’s ability to issue an eSIM–which can be a painfully contrived process requiring you to go to a store or scan a QR code that is mailed to you days later.

Even if you can have multiple eSIMs in a phone, switching carriers on the fly becomes effectively impossible (which is a big thing for carriers, and harks back to when US carriers did not use GSM).

Hartley Charlton:

Following today’s “Awe dropping” special event, Apple’s iPhone lineup now contains seven models at different price points.

Hartley Charlton:

This guide offers a detailed look at every difference—dimensions, design, cameras, battery life, and pricing—so you can make an informed choice.

BasicAppleGuy:

The iPhone Air is all battery. The entire brains of the phone is essentially smushed into the camera plateau! 🤯

Joe Rossignol:

The first benchmark results for the A19 Pro chip in the iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air surfaced in the Geekbench 6 database today.

Juli Clover:

The iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max have a higher-end A19 Pro chip with a 6-core GPU, and the iPhone Air has an A19 Pro chip with one less GPU core.

Marco Arment:

17: less cache
17 and Air: more cache, 5 GPU cores
17 Pro: more cache, 6 GPU cores

I wonder if they maybe clocked them differently, too.

Marco Arment:

iPhone 13 Mini: 141g
iPhone Air: 165g
iPhone 16: 170g
iPhone 16 Pro: 199g
iPhone 17 Pro: 206g

Update (2025-09-11): Kuba Suder:

The iPhone Air is:
21 g heavier than the last iPhone SE (which I use)
36 g heavier than iPhone 6
30 g heavier than iPhone 12 Mini
and 52 g heavier than original iPhone SE 🫠

He has a table that shows all the dimensions.

Update (2025-09-12): Adam Engst:

Although the iPhone Air may not match the battery life of the iPhone 17 or iPhone 17 Pro, it surpasses the iPhone 16e and iPhone 16 and is similar to the iPhone 16 Plus.

He has a table.

Update (2025-10-09): Steve Troughton-Smith:

Learned only yesterday that there’s a button in Settings to convert your SIM card to eSIM, so I went through the process. Very straightforward, and appears to have worked OK.

Elizabeth Chamberlain (Hacker News):

To be honest, we were holding our breath for the iPhone Air. Thinner usually means flimsier, harder to fix, and more glued-down parts. But the iPhone Air proves otherwise. Apple has somehow built its thinnest iPhone ever without tanking repairability.

Quinn Nelson:

I really want the iPhone Air but I also know I will hate it and should very much get the standard Pro.
I haven’t had this much decision paralysis with iPhones since the mini.

Ryan Jones:

It’s literally just a manufacturing test – for the foldable iPhone next year. Thinness isn’t a relevant feature – 97% use cases anyway!

Why isn’t it named “17 Air”? Cuz there won’t be an 18 Air.

Michi:

The iPhone Air main body is thinner than the iPod touch 5th generation’s main body. Still thicker if you include the Plateau though.

Matt Ronge:

The iPhone Air is incredible, I am very happy with this upgrade.
It feels faster than the iPhone 16 plus (my previous phone)
The camera is great
It’s insanely light and easily fits in my pocket (HUGE upgrade)
Battery life has been a non-issue

Amir:

This is how the thickness of recent iPhone cameras look next to each other.

Ryan Jones:

PR jujitsu by Apple.
The iPhone 17 Pro wipes off.
The iPhone Air does NOT. It’s scratched to hell.

Om Malik:

It took about seven years of design evolution for Apple to come up with a worthy successor to the iPhone X. Everything that made the X extraordinary lives on in the Air. “From chips to materials to improved interactions, it is what you don’t see that makes the X a great phone,” I said. The Air is that vision fully realized, enhanced by seven years of technological progress.

The evolution from X to Air tells a compelling story about Apple’s relentless pursuit of refinement. The iPhone Air’s larger screen (6.5″ compared to the X’s 5.8″) somehow feels more compact, perhaps because it is so thin at just 5.6mm—27% thinner than the X’s 7.7mm. It makes the new iPhone 17 Pro look positively chunky by comparison.

Joe Rossignol:

The first reviews of the iPhone Air have been published by selected media outlets and YouTube channels, offering a closer look at the device ahead of its launch on Friday.

Christian Selig:

I’ve been loving my iPhone Air. A week in I think it’s my favorite iPhone since the iPhone X.

[…]

The only area I’ve kinda been disappointed on is the camera situation. No, not the telephoto, I really never used that personally. And not the ultrawide, for me that just felt too wide. But the ultrawide did allow for awesome macro capabilities that this iPhone Air is sorely lacking. At least currently.

[…]

The iPhone Air’s minimum focus distance is just too short.

Riccardo Mori:

Maybe my favourite, concise review of the iPhone Air from a big YouTuber. Dave is always very practical and honest in pointing out certain things:
“And the thing is, the novelty of the thinness of this phone wears off pretty quickly. I’m wrapping up week two and it’s still like, every time I pick it up I’m like, this is super-thin! This is awesome! But I don’t feel like my life has changed all that much going from, like, a very thin phone to an extremely thin phone.”

Ben Sandofsky:

Is one lens really enough? Will you miss ProRAW and LiDAR? To put this to a test, I took to New York with an iPhone Air and an M6.
[…]
If you love bug shots, the Air is not for you. But the available focal lengths are more than enough for the rangefinder crowd.
[…]
It isn’t a camera for beginners[…]

Jason Snell:

There are dozens of obvious reasons to buy an iPhone 17 or iPhone 17 Pro instead of the iPhone Air. But when I hold the Air between my thumb and index finger and feel its weight and thinness, I begin to wonder how much those reasons matter.

Update (2025-10-22): Hartley Charlton:

The business publication claims to have learned of a major cut to iPhone Air production motivated by weaker-than-expected consumer interest, nearly to “end of production levels.” Despite early reports of the iPhone Air selling out within hours of launch in China, the overall reception has apparently been lukewarm in the region.
Combined with weak demand in other markets, sales projections have dropped significantly.

Matt Ronge:

Even from our iPhone screen protector sales we can see that the iPhone Air isn’t a big hit
Which is sad because I love mine!

Jeff Johnson:

Every year I see these rumors, “Apple is cutting iPhone production,” but they all seem like BS, and it never affects Apple’s revenue in their quarterly reports. I’m skeptical.

John Gruber:

There was no reason to ship the iPhone Air “in preparation” for a foldable iPhone next year if they didn’t think the Air would be a success on its own. They could have just started with the foldable next year.

I think it’s both. They thought it would be a success, or at least had a good chance of being a success, and they also wanted to learn for the foldable through manufacturing at scale. Another way of looking at it: if there were no plans for a foldable iPhone, would there have been an iPhone Air at all?

One thing that’s weird about these reports of low sales numbers for the iPhone Air is that it doesn’t seem like Apple is advertising it at all. If I were Joz, I’d be advertising the hell out of it. I’ve been watching a lot of sports on commercial TV since September, and I haven’t seen a single ad for the Air. Tons of commercials for the orange iPhone 17 Pro, but zip for the Air.

Update (2025-10-30): Max Seelemann:

Also seeing really bad cellular data rates? Is the C1x to blame?
I have 2 bars 5G and am essentially offline. I know I’m not on the best network, but this is SIGNIFICANTLY worse than before. This is my most significant gripe with this device.

Update (2025-10-31): Matt Birchler:

Here’s the catch: when I use my phone, I rest it on my pinky, which bears much of the device’s weight. You’d think the lighter phone would be easier on that finger, but I found the opposite to be true.
If the iPhone 17 Pro is a butter knife, the iPhone Air is a steak knife.
Yes, it’s lighter, but it digs into my finger far more than I expected, and there are two reasons for this, as far as I can tell.

Update (2025-11-10): Juli Clover:

The thin, light iPhone Air sold so poorly that Apple has decided to delay the launch of the next-generation iPhone Air that was scheduled to come out alongside the iPhone 18 Pro, reports The Information.

Apple A19 Pro Apple C1X Apple Event Apple Hardware Announcement Apple N1 Battery Life Camera eSIM iOS iOS 26 iPhone iPhone Air

11 Comments

iPhone 17

Apple (video, Hacker News, MacRumors):

Apple today announced iPhone 17, featuring the new Center Stage front camera that takes selfies to the next level; a powerful 48MP Fusion Main camera with an optical-quality 2x Telephoto; and a new 48MP Fusion Ultra Wide camera that captures expansive scenes and macro photography in more detail. The 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion is bigger and brighter, enabling supersmooth scrolling, immersive gaming, and improved efficiency. And with the new Ceramic Shield 2, the front cover is tougher than any smartphone glass or glass-ceramic, with 3x better scratch resistance than the previous generation and reduced glare. It is all powered by the latest-generation A19 chip for higher performance and longevity.

iPhone 17 will now be available starting with 256GB of storage — double the entry storage from the previous generation — and a 512GB option, in five beautiful colors: black, lavender, mist blue, sage, and white.

[…]

iPhone 17 introduces N1, a new Apple-designed wireless networking chip that enables Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread.

It looks like they’re getting rid of the Plus.

Previously:

Update (2025-09-10): See also: Hacker News.

Update (2025-10-08): Juli Clover:

Apple is planning to release a fix for an iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro camera bug that causes black boxes to appear in photos. CNN Underscored’s Henry Casey discovered the issue in an iPhone Air review when snapping photos at a concert.

David Lieb:

Got my new iPhone yesterday!
Spent the entire evening trying to log in to nearly every single app again.
My annual reminder that no team ever actually cares about the onboarding experience, since they rarely have to do it themselves.

Andrew Cunningham:

This year, ProMotion finally comes to the regular-old iPhone 17, years after midrange and even lower-end Android phones made the swap to 90 or 120 Hz display panels. And it sounds like a small thing, but the screen upgrade—together with a doubling of base storage from 128GB to 256GB—makes the gap between this year’s iPhone and iPhone Pro feel narrower than it’s been in a long time. If you jumped on the Pro train a few years back and don’t want to spend that much again, this might be a good year to switch back. If you’ve ever been tempted by the Pro but never made the upgrade, you can continue not doing that and miss out on relatively little.

Michael Burkhardt:

With the iPhone 17, Apple announced that they’ll be capable of charging even faster than previous iPhone models: up to 50% in just 20 minutes.
In its tech specs for the iPhone 17 models, Apple says:
Up to 50% charge in 20 minutes with 40W adapter or higher (available separately) paired with USB‑C charging cable
Up to 50% charge in 30 minutes with 30W adapter or higher paired with MagSafe Charger (both available separately)

Tim Hardwick:

The first set of reviews are out for the new 6.3-inch base iPhone 17 model ahead of the full iPhone 17 lineup launching on Friday.

Hassam Nasir (Hacker News):

In PassMark’s single-threaded benchmark, the A19 produced the best numbers of any chip available, including fully-fledged desktop SKUs. It did that while consuming significantly less power and being passively cooled. At least in this hyper-specific case, Apple’s A19 has become the fastest CPU available.
Both the A19 and A19 Pro benchmarked within the margin of error of each other; however, officially, it was the regular A19 that posted 5,149 points to claim the single-thread performance crown.

Apple A19 Apple Event Apple Hardware Announcement Apple N1 Camera iOS iOS 26 iPhone iPhone 17 Natural Language Translation Power ProMotion

Comments

Apple Watch Ultra 3

Apple (video, MacRumors):

Designed to keep users more connected and safer wherever they are with built-in satellite communications, Apple Watch Ultra 3 allows users to text emergency services, message friends and family, and share their location, all while they’re off the grid. The ultimate sports and adventure watch now features the largest screen of any Apple Watch, a display with a 1Hz always-on refresh rate, 5G cellular capabilities, the most accurate GPS in a sports watch, and up to 42 hours of battery life — with up to 72 hours in Low Power Mode.

[…]

With Find My via satellite, users can send their location once every 15 minutes to contacts previously added to Find My. In addition, with Messages via satellite, users can send and receive texts, emoji, and Tapbacks to friends and family — including anyone they’ve been in touch with over the last 30 days — while keeping the messages end-to-end encrypted. Users can also send SMS messages via satellite.

Previously:

Update (2025-09-10): See also: Hacker News.

Update (2025-10-07): Matt Birchler:

We’re well past the era when year-over-year Apple Watch upgrades made any sense at all, and I’d argue that even if you bought the original Apple Watch Ultra three years ago, there’s still no real reason for most people to even entertain an upgrade to the brand new Ultra 3.
[…]
Apple advertises 36 hours of battery life on the Ultra 2, and I would regularly get 40-48 hours on a charge. Apple has bumped their prediction up to 42 hours in the Ultra 3, and I routinely get 55-62 hours, or about 2.5 days.
[…]
The “new” display here is basically the same screen upgrade the Series 10 got last year, so it’s not the most thrilling thing ever, but it is my low-key favorite thing about this model upgrade.
[…]
One criticism I have here is that this 1-second refresh rate is not consistent across the experience. The time on the watch face updates every second, but complications still update once a minute.

Apple Event Apple Hardware Announcement Apple Watch Apple Watch Ultra 3 Emergency SOS via Satellite Find My watchOS watchOS 26

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Apple Watch SE 3

Apple (video, MacRumors, Hacker News):

Apple Watch SE 3 delivers a more advanced set of health features than the previous generation — including sleep score, retrospective ovulation estimates, sleep apnea notifications, and wrist temperature sensing for richer Vitals app data — plus a robust set of fitness features to provide daily motivation. The S10 chip powers an Always-On display, the double tap and wrist flick gestures, on-device Siri, and fast charging. Apple Watch SE 3 also offers 5G cellular capabilities and a cover glass that is more durable than ever.

[…]

Even with the addition of the Always-On display, Apple Watch SE 3 offers all-day, 18-hour battery life, and also features fast charging for the first time. Apple Watch SE 3 now charges up to 2x faster than the previous generation; charging for 15 minutes can add up to eight hours of battery for daily use, and it can charge to about 80 percent in 45 minutes.

This is probably the only hardware from today’s announcements that I’ll buy. My first-generation Apple Watch SE is just feeling really slow, and now that its OS is several versions behind my iPhone’s the complications have become unreliable.

Previously:

Update (2025-10-01): Juli Clover:

Compared to the more expensive Apple Watch Series 11, the SE line lacks ECGs, blood oxygen sensing, and hypertension notifications. It is also limited to 40mm and 44mm screen sizes, and doesn’t have the newer, thinner display that Apple introduced with the Series 10.

Apple Event Apple Hardware Announcement Apple Watch Apple Watch SE watchOS watchOS 26

3 Comments

Apple Watch Series 11

Apple (video):

Apple today introduced Apple Watch Series 11, offering the most comprehensive set of health features yet, longer battery life, an even more durable cover glass, and 5G cellular capabilities, all in its thinnest and most comfortable design. Apple Watch Series 11 is the ultimate health and fitness companion, empowering users with notifications for signs of chronic high blood pressure — also known as hypertension — plus new insights into sleep quality with sleep score, adding to the robust suite of health features included in the device. Featuring up to 24 hours of battery life and Ion-X glass that’s 2x more scratch-resistant, Apple Watch is more convenient than ever to wear throughout the day and night.

[…]

If users receive a hypertension notification, it is recommended that they log their blood pressure for seven days using a third-party blood pressure cuff and share the results with their provider at their next visit, which is consistent with the latest American Heart Association guidelines for the diagnosis and management of hypertension.

Previously:

Update (2025-09-10): Tim Hardwick:

Apple has announced that its new hypertension detection feature, initially exclusive to the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Apple Watch Series 11, will be expanded to include earlier Apple Watch models.

Update (2025-09-11): matejamm1 (via Meek Geek):

So Apple is hyping the Watch Series 11 as having 24 hours of battery life compared to 18 hours on the Series 10. That looks like a huge 33% improvement, moving away from their 18h goalpost for the first time ever since the very first Watch. But if you read their testing methodology in the footnotes it’s not really what it seems.
[…]
The “extra 6 hours” is just Apple finally including sleep tracking in the test. But sleep tracking barely sips power, and previous Apple Watches have already been able to easily surpass their 18 hour claims and go through a night of sleep tracking on top.
[…]
So here, not only is the difference just 2 hours (38 vs 36), a measly 5% increase, but even then Apple also quietly lowered the “active usage” assumptions for the new model. Fewer checks, fewer notifications, less app time. Again, not really an upgrade, just a shift in methodology.

They also (long ago) changed their methodology for measuring phone thickness.

Apple Event Apple Hardware Announcement Apple Watch Apple Watch Series 11 Battery Life Health Sleep watchOS watchOS 26

1 Comment

AirPods Pro 3

Apple (video, MacRumors, Hacker News):

AirPods Pro 3 deliver unbelievable sound quality and the world’s best in-ear Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) — removing up to 2x more noise than the previous-generation AirPods Pro, and 4x more than the original AirPods Pro. The updated design helps AirPods Pro 3 fit even better and provides greater in-ear stability during activities like running, HIIT, yoga, and more. For the first time, users can utilize AirPods Pro 3 to measure heart rate and track over 50 workout types with the new experience in the Fitness app on iPhone. Live Translation also comes to AirPods, making face-to-face conversations easier by helping users connect even if they don’t speak the same language.

Still $249.

Previously:

Update (2025-09-10): Tim Hardwick:

Apple’s Live Translation feature, unveiled during its AirPods Pro 3 announcement, is expanding to older models including AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation and AirPods Pro 2.

Cabel Sasser:

a reminder that if you use the Apple Store app — not the Apple website — you can engrave AirPods with your Memoji.

Update (2025-09-12): Juli Clover:

There were rumors that the AirPods Pro 3 Charging Case would get smaller, but that didn’t happen. It’s actually bigger than before, but it is a little less heavy. There’s no button on the back, with Apple swapping to the same hidden capacitive button that’s on the AirPods 4 case.
Audio quality is clearly better on the low end, with better balance. Active Noise Cancellation is also 2x better, though Dan wasn’t able to test the AirPods long enough to definitively confirm Apple’s claims.
Live Translation is available for in-person conversations, and it worked during a test with a Spanish speaking Apple employee.

Update (2025-10-07): Tim Hardwick:

In iOS 26, Live Translation enables hands-free communication by allowing users who don’t share the same language to speak naturally while wearing AirPods. For conversations with non-AirPods users, the iPhone can display live transcriptions horizontally, showing translations in the other person’s preferred language. Keep reading to learn how to use it.

Meek Geek:

I expected Apple to make them sound more “consumer friendly” by emphasizing more of the bass and treble, just like what they did with the AirPods 4. And they did.
[…]
Expect your average consumer and YouTuber to say they “sound better”, especially with the bass boost. This will be in the majority.
While the audiophiles and people who prefer a more neutral sound will absolutely not like it.

Joe Rossignol:

In the review video below, our own Dan Barbera shares his thoughts on the AirPods Pro 3, after testing them for nearly a week.

Nick Heer:

Apple’s AirPods remain, for me, the most difficult product not to buy. I enjoyed my AirPods 2 while they lasted, and using a set of wired headphones afterwards does not feel quite right. But these new models still do not have replaceable batteries. It is hard to write this without sounding preachy, so just assume this is my problem, not yours. I continue to be perplexed by treating perfectly good speaker drivers, microphones, and chips as disposable simply because they are packaged with a known consumable part. The engineering for swappable batteries would be, I assume, diabolical, but I still cannot get to a point where I am okay with spending over three hundred Canadian dollars every few years because of this predictable limitation.

Michael Rowe:

You can’t beat the sound isolation of a good set of over the ear headsets like the AirPods Max or Bose Quiet Comfort line, BUT the AirPods Pro 3, with the good fit from above, have finally fixed that for me. The improved sound quality and fit get’s rid of bubble head.

[…]

Battery Life – while you can’t really test battery life when you get new tech, my test on Saturday was 8-10 hours with no problem in transparency (or as I like to call it – hearing aid mode). […] My AirPods Pro 2 have about 4-5 hours of transparency mode, and so getting thru an entire day with AirPods Pro 3 in transparency mode, is a game changer.

Matt Birchler:

I’m writing this on day 6 using these things, and I gotta say, I don’t get it.
Don’t get me wrong, these are very good on the whole, but they’re very good in all the ways the AirPods Pro 2 were good already.
[…]
I still hear the world around me, and it was “if you didn’t tell me it was better, I wouldn’t notice it had changed”.
[…]
The battery should last longer when wearing them for long sessions, but you’ll have to charge the case more often.
[…]
The charging case is a bit bigger. It still fits in my coin pocket, which is what matters most, but it is a bummer that the case got bigger while my effective battery life got worse.

Elizabeth Chamberlain:

The AirPods Pro 3 are as unfixable as ever.

Matt Sephton:

I find it quite disappointing but of course unsurprising that I cannot take a hearing test with my new AirPods Pro 3 on my iPhone 16 Pro running the latest iOS 18.7.1 update. These are all things that are less than a year old.

Jezmund_Berserker:

Two flights behind me with the new AirPods Pro 3. For context, I couldn’t wear the 2s. They felt okay in my ears, but after about 20 minutes of wearing them my ears physically hurt. I’m not sure what was going on, but I tried them on multiple occasions and just couldn’t get around it.

The 3s have not had this issue for me. For my <2 hour flights, I’ll bring these and never my on-ear Bose again. The space savings is great and the noise canceling is every bit as good. For longer flights, I’ll probably bring the Bose because 2 hours of (any) ear buds is just irritating enough that I’m ready to get them out.

Matt Birchler:

I regret to say, not only do I think the AirPods Pro 3 are a disappointing update for me, I think they’re actually a downgrade over the AirPods Pro 2. I’m finishing this review at the airport gate, waiting for my flight to board, and the AirPods Pro 2 are currently in my ears.
[…]
The main downgrade for me is that for the first time in literally the entire history of Apple making earbuds, I lost the ear lottery this time, and these simply do not feel good in my ears. To be clear, they stay in there quite nicely, even over several hours, but if I wear them for more than 30 minutes, they become actively painful. I’ve tried every single tip size that comes in the box, and all of them have this issue.
[…]
iFixit’s teardowns confirm the battery change, with the new case sporting a 344 mAh battery with the Pro 2 case having a 398 mAh capacity.

Warner Crocker:

The AirPods Pro 3 got early overwhelming raves but as more folks have tried them in more ears some of those first blush raves have been joined with more tempered opinions. Apple made a big deal about improvements in both the sound AirPods Pro 3 deliver and also how much testing they did to find the best fit for the most people. In my experience Apple scored a hit when it comes to sound and noise cancelation, but a more of a miss when it comes to fit.