At a quick glance, you might think it’s been business as usual for iPhones this year, given that we’ve once again seen more evolution in Apple’s smartphones than revolution; plus, there’s still no foldable iPhone.
But look a little deeper, and you’ll realize that Cupertino has made some big strides with its ubiquitous smartphone in 2025. And that’s exactly what I’ve done in this article; I’ve analyzed what’s been good, bad, and downright ugly with iPhones over the past 12 months.
So, let’s get into it, and if you have any thoughts, please head to the comments below after you’ve read my take.
The good: solid upgrades, iPhone 17 hardware on par with Android
While there’s not been a shake-up in general iPhone features and overall offering, both the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro got a neat suite of upgrades that make them well worth considering if you’re due an upgrade.
The iPhone 17 Pro Max and its smaller sibling got a new rear camera module that now holds the A19 Pro chip, making room for a vapor chamber below that not only offers more cooling and thus sustained performance, but also shifts hot components further away from a user’s fingers – unless you hold the phone in a strange way.
Again, not a revolution for iPhones, but a solid change.
The iPhone 17 arguably did even better on the upgrades front. It got a larger, brighter display, with slimmed-down bezels that allow a 6.3-inch display to be fitted into the same footprint where a 6.1-inch screen once sat.
That display is now a 120Hz Pro Motion one, too, with Apple finally no longer saddling non-Pro phones with a sluggish 60Hz display (which even the best cheap phones had moved on from a long time ago). That upgrade alone has made it rather easy for me to transition from an iPhone 16 Pro Max to an iPhone 17.
Furthermore, all four new iPhones got Apple’s latest 48MP Fusion main camera, which uses a lot of sensor cropping to deliver better zoom range without upping the rear camera count. It’s early days, but in my short time with the iPhone 17, I’ve found this Fusion camera (which was previously exclusive to the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max) to work rather well.
The bad: iPhone Air is kinda meh, not so smart Apple Intelligence
While it grabbed headlines, the iPhone Air is arguably a bit of a swing and a miss for Apple. In our iPhone Air review, Jacob Krol praised the svelte design of the phone, but it’s not like the main iPhones are particularly bulky or heavy.
And for the price, Apple is only offering one rear camera. Yet it then equips the slim phone with a powerful A19 Pro chip… I’m not sure that makes a lot of sense.
And I think consumers might agree, as there have not been a lot of positive sales reports for the iPhone Air, and I’ve not seen many actual Air phones out in the wild. Perhaps it’ll be more of a tech and design platform for Apple to integrate into the main iPhones; we’ll have to see what a likely Apple event in September 2026 brings.
In other bad bits, Apple Intelligence has hobbled out of a messy launch last year, and now feels a lot more featured and widely available. However, in practical use, it’s still not up to snuff, with notification summaries not being partially accurate, Siri being overly reliant on ChatGPT, and the Intelligence features built into Camera Control being largely hit-and-miss.
Chatting to Phones Editor Axel Metz, he told me he’s turned off most of the Apple Intelligence features apart from Siri Suggestions, Clean Up, and Visual Intelligence, and in his use finds Google Gemini on iOS far more effective than Apple’s native AI tools. So, there’s definitely room for improvement in 2026.
The ugly: overwhelming orange, iOS 26 niggles
Now, I’ll caveat that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but unlike Editor at Large Lance Ulanoff, I can’t say I’m a big fan of Apple’s new Cosmic Orange color for the iPhone 17 Pro phones.
While it’s striking, I don’t think it’s a very ‘Apple’ color. Rather, Cosmic Orange feels like a color Samsung would come up with, and I’d have expected a more pastel hue from Apple, instead of one that looks almost like it’s a candy coating.
So, of course, the iPhone 17 Pro I have to use for work is Cosmic Orange; such is the cruel irony of life. Maybe it’ll grow on me, but rather than releasing such a polarizing color, I do wish Apple would bring back its hits, like the fantastic dark green that used to adorn its best iPhones.
On other iPhone ugliness, I (and a good few others across the internet) have found iOS 26 to not quite be up to the standard I’d have hoped for from Apple. I encountered some bugs and performance gremlins on my iPhone 16 Pro Max, and while some found the upgrade to be fine, in my experience, it ate up battery and just felt clunky.
I also can’t say I was won over on the Liquid Glass material design. It looked neat in slick presentations, but in general use, I find it a bit fussy, and it feels like form has trumped function; not something I expect from Apple. So, I reckon there’s room for improvement with iOS next year.
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