The Apple iPhone 17, iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max were launched early Wednesday morning to much positive reaction regarding design changes, more powerful specifications, improved cameras and faster charging support.
But not everything announced was exciting and some also left users confused. With pre-orders for all four models opening today, you might want to know what the shortcomings are before considering buying this year's iPhone 17 series.
1. No New Apple Intelligence Features
The majority of the most exciting features such as a smarter Siri and ChatGPT support promised last year for the iPhone 16 series did not arrive as promised. The problematic development of Apple Intelligence forced Apple to remove ads featuring these features from YouTube.
As a result, there were no new features this year that really gave the wow factor that the device should be purchased. The real-time language translation feature Live Translation is still limited to English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish only. On Android, the same feature can support more languages such as Indonesian for over a year. Apple Intelligence is not only delayed and what was promised has not arrived, but what is offered is also behind the capabilities of competitors.
2. iPhone Air Only Equipped with One Camera
The iPhone Air is only equipped with one camera like the iPhone 16e and iPhone SE. On the iPhone 16e and SE, it may be forgiven because the device is sold at a starting price of RM2999. But the iPhone Air is sold at a starting price of RM4999 and it is difficult to justify the use of a mono camera on a premium flagship device.
I still remember after the Galaxy S25 Edge was launched earlier this year, Samsung was criticized because it was only equipped with a 200+12 MP dual camera which was not as good as other Galaxy S25 series devices. If Samsung can do it, why can't Apple do it when they are a company with a reputation for introducing various innovations.
3. iPhone Air Has Mono Speaker
Not only is there only one camera, the iPhone Air speaker is also mono. Once again, I repeat here that the iPhone Air is sold at a starting price of RM499 and increases to RM6999 each. Imagine a device that costs almost RM7000 but the audio system only has a mono speaker on the top. For stereo and spatial audio, owners need to buy headphones like AirPods.
On Android devices, mono speakers can only be forgiven on mid-range devices. Maybe Apple's purists are more holy and insist that the iPhone Air's mono speaker is the greatest in the entire Milky Way. Just as they insist that 4GB of RAM is enough, 15W charging is fast and the 60Hz LCD screen is comparable to the 120Hz OLEDs of a few years ago.
4. The iPhone Air's Battery Is Too Small
The iPhone Air's battery capacity is 3149 mAh, which is much smaller than the iPhone 17 (3692 mAh), iPhone 17 Pro (3988 mAh) and iPhone 17 Pro Max (4823 mAh). Fortunately, to avoid the issue of the battery not lasting all day, Apple sells a 3000 mAh MagSafe battery pack only for the iPhone Air, which is sold at a price of RM479 each. This will make the iPhone Air's body thicker again.
Apple has yet to use SiC batteries that allow large capacities to be achieved in small batteries. Maybe next year with SiC technology maturing, the issue of thinness but small capacity will not happen again.
5. iPhone Air Only Supports eSIM
What was sacrificed to get the slim iPhone Air body? In addition to just one camera, mono speaker and small battery, the physical SIM tray was also sent back to its creator. The iPhone Air is the first iPhone to be offered in all markets without physical SIM support as it only supports two eSIMs. For those who already use eSIM, this is not a big deal, but if you have not yet moved on from physical SIMs, the iPhone Air is clearly not for you.
6. iPhone 17 and iPhone Air Only Support USB 2
Only the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max are equipped with a USB-C port with USB-3 speeds. USB-3 supports data transfers of up to 10 GB/s allowing video recording directly to an external SSD. The iPhone Air and iPhone 7 still use USB-2 which supports a slow 480 MB/s transfer. On the iPhone 17 we understand this because it is the base model.
But the iPhone Air is a device with the Apple A19 Pro and the starting price is RM4999 each. The lack of USB-3 support is disappointing because the feature of recording videos directly to SSD via USB connection cannot be used on this model.
7. iPhone 17 Air Charging Slower
This year's iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro support up to 60W charging, which is much better than last year's 25W. This is the peak charging power that is reached in an instant, allowing the battery to be charged up to 50% in as little as 20 minutes. On the iPhone Air, the 3149 mAh battery took 30 minutes to charge to 50%. The battery is small, and the charging is not fast. This is an unsatisfying combination.
8. No More Titanium Body
Two years ago, Apple resumed the trend of using a titanium body pioneered by the Essential Phone eight years ago. Users were told that titanium is the most durable, premium and lightweight material.
Apple's move was later imitated by Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi. This material is indeed premium and feels good in the hand. This year, the emphasis is on the new cooling system and all iPhone 17 Pro models return with an aluminum body that acts as a heat sink.
9. Camera Control Seems to Be Forgotten
Camera Control was introduced last year to allow various camera app features to be controlled using the physical button on the right side of the iPhone 16 series. When it was launched, the features that could be used were limited and I must say it was not very smooth because it was a new feature. Therefore, I rarely met an iPhone 16 owner who admitted to using Camera Control.
No new features or improvements were announced for the iPhone 17 series. It is still a feature borrowed from the increasingly forgotten Sony Xperia. There are predictions that with the body of the device getting thinner in the future, Camera Control may be sacrificed like 3D Touch.
10. Not All Features Supported in Malaysia
I criticized Google because some Pixel features such as accident detection and Assistant answering the phone are still exclusive to the United States. So it is fair to criticize Apple for doing the same. The Emergency SOS and Road Side Assistance features that use a satellite system are still only available to users in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australasia at the time of writing.
With the satellite feature only being free for two years, it looks like the majority of iPhone 17 buyers won't be able to use this life-saving feature in Malaysia anytime soon. The wait since iPhone 14 continues for another year..
Here is a list of the 10 most disappointing things about this year's iPhone 17 series. With the list of 10 interesting things about the iPhone 17 series published yesterday, I hope to help you decide whether you should pre-order the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPhone Air at 8pm tonight.