Waiting For Apple's iPhone 17? Brace Yourself For A Price Hike
One of the rumored upgrades headed to Apple's next-generation iPhone 17 Pro Max that could make the flagship phone worth waiting for is a bigger battery with a nearly 7% boost in capacity compared to the iPhone 16 Pro Max. If true, it would be the second-biggest capacity jump since the iPhone 13 Pro Max. However, it's now expected to come with a price hike compared to the current-generation iPhone 16 Pro Max. Same goes for every other iPhone 17 model.
That's the word that was just put out by Edison Lee, an analyst at Jefferies, one of the world's biggest full-service investment banking and capital market firms. As reported by Business Insider, Lee stated in a note to investors that he anticipates every iPhone 17 model being priced $50 higher than their respective iPhone 16 predecessors.
If that ends up being the case, the starting price for the iPhone 17 family will break down as follows...
- iPhone 17 Pro Max: $1,249
- iPhone 17 Pro: $1,049
- iPhone 17: $829
- iPhone 17 Air: ???
Those are baseline prices, and of course Apple will offer storage upgrades for a fee for each model. The wild card in all this is the iPhone 17 Air. It will be the first time that Apple offers an "Air" model, which is rumored to be an ultra-thin variant to compete with the likes of Samsung's Galaxy S25 Edge we recently reviewed and other similarly svelte smartphones.
A number that's been tossed around for iPhone 17 Air is $899. Tack on a $50 price hike and we're looking at a possible starting price of $949. That one is tougher to gauge, though, because there's no concrete reference point like there is with the rest of the iPhone 17 lineup.
Why the price hike? It comes down to tariffs. According to the reported research note, 40% of the iPhone 17 will be manufactured in China. Lee supposes that if the cost to build the next-gen phone series goes up by $20 to $25, then a $50 price hike "may barely cover the above cost increases."
If the expected $50 price hike comes to pass, it will be interesting to see how consumers respond. A rash of rumors have pointed to a number of tantalizing upgrades headed to the iPhone 17 family, including a 200-megapixel camera and vapor chamber cooling. It's unlikely that every rumor will bear fruit, though.
