The iPhone 17 is coming in just some weeks, and rumors have been circulating all summer time. Alongside the standard fashions just like the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Professional fashions, Apple can also be doubtlessly bringing a slimmer telephone to the social gathering, in addition to a brand new model of its FineWoven equipment. With all of that mentioned, how lots of the iPhone 17’s rumored options are literally new to the market?
It’s a story that dates again properly over a decade. Android telephones have repeatedly crushed the iPhone to new options. I keep in mind being a younger tech blogger speaking about how the iPhone 6 got here with NFC, a characteristic that Android telephones had included because the launch of the Samsung Nexus S a couple of years earlier.
Since this theme has been current within the iOS versus Android debate for so long as most of us can keep in mind, let’s evaluate the rumored options of the iPhone 17 and see which of them have already been in the marketplace as Android telephones.
The iPhone 17 Air
One of many large rumors this 12 months is that Apple will introduce a slimmer iPhone 17 alongside the remainder of the lineup. Ought to the rumors pan out, the telephone will likely be referred to as the iPhone 17 Air, and it’ll be the thinnest iPhone that Apple has ever made. Leaked pictures of the machine present that it’s about as skinny as its buttons, which is a flip from telephones remaining thicker to accommodate bigger batteries.
The factor is, Samsung already did this, and really just lately. The Korean tech large launched the Galaxy S25 Edge earlier this 12 months, which is basically a Galaxy S25 however made as skinny as potential. It’s barely thicker than its personal buttons as properly, and when seen facet by facet, the design is fairly related throughout. Rating one for Android telephones.
A wider digicam bump
One other design change doubtlessly coming is a digicam bump that spans many of the width of the telephone’s again. It’s a part of a number of design adjustments which are rumored to occur, together with the iPhone going again to an aluminum body as an alternative of a titanium body (which, consequently, was a design borrowed by Samsung). That is backed up by case renders of the iPhone 17.
Credit score: Zain bin Awais/Mashable
For those who squint slightly, you may see that that is one thing already discovered on the Google Pixel 9. In Apple’s protection, the Pixel’s model is extra curved than rectangular, just like the iPhone 17’s digicam bump is rumored to be. Nevertheless, the thought of it spanning many of the again of the machine has been carried out by a number of Android telephones prior to now, with the Pixel 9 being the latest instance.
Vapor chamber cooling
One other rumor swirling round is that the iPhone 17 is lastly upping its thermal sport by introducing vapor chamber cooling. The premise is fairly easy and leverages the cooling advantages of liquids altering phases. Water heats up, evaporates, strikes to the cooler finish of the chamber, the place it cools down, turns again right into a liquid, and returns to assemble extra warmth. It’s fairly efficient.
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Android telephones have been utilizing vapor chamber cooling for nearly a decade. The Razer Cellphone 2 is essentially thought of the primary telephone to do all of it the way in which again in 2018. Since then, Samsung and different OEMs have launched the expertise, and Samsung nonetheless makes use of it to this present day. Curiously, the Pixel 10 simply launched it as a part of its lineup, so it beat Apple by a month.
120 Hz shows on each mannequin
In prior years, Apple reserved its 120 Hz refresh fee ProMotion show for the iPhone Professional fashions. This 12 months, it’s rumored that your entire lineup is lastly getting excessive refresh fee shows, unifying the lineup, which incorporates the iPhone 17 Air mannequin. It’ll be the primary time that each iPhone in a era has had the identical refresh fee because the whole iPhone 12 lineup featured 60 Hz shows.
Android telephones beat the iPhone to increased decision shows by 4 years (2017’s Razer Cellphone versus 2021’s iPhone 13 Professional). Nevertheless, Android OEMs have been stashing the tech in whole lineups since not less than the Galaxy S20 collection in 2020. Even Google does this with its lower-end Pixel telephones, with the Pixel 9a housing a refresh fee of 120 Hz like its dearer siblings.
12GB of RAM, lastly
Apple obtained reward for upgrading the iPhone 16 to 8GB of RAM from the 6GB of RAM within the iPhone 15. Rumor has it that the iPhone 17 will include a 50 % bump to 12GB of RAM, making it essentially the most ever in an iPhone. That is little doubt due to Apple Intelligence, which requires extra {hardware} than most different stuff you do on a smartphone, so Apple is beefing up its specs to verify all of the iOS 26 AI options work accurately.
Android telephones have had 12GB RAM or much more for fairly a while. Samsung has been doing this for years, even providing 16GB of RAM within the Galaxy S21 Extremely earlier than backing it right down to 12GB on future fashions. Google and different telephone makers have additionally carried out with the Pixel, sporting 12GB of RAM since final 12 months’s Pixel 9, and some Chinese language telephones are ramping it as much as 24GB or past.
A bigger battery capability
Fashionable iPhones have change into way more aggressive by way of battery life. The iPhone 16 Professional Max got here with the most important battery ever housed in an iPhone, at 4,685 mAh. One of many rumors for 2025’s iPhone 17 is that the Professional Max is being made barely thicker to accommodate a battery that hits the 5,000 mAh barrier for the primary time in iPhone historical past.
Right here’s the factor: Android telephone makers have been doing that for years now. The Samsung Galaxy S20 Extremely was among the many first, launched in 2020. Loads of Android telephones have met or exceeded 5,000 mAh within the years since. It’s good to see Apple bringing its telephones as much as par with the competitors, and we hope they preserve doing so on this area, so battery life will get longer.
A totally refreshed design with iOS 26
Credit score: Zooey Liao; Apple
Apple is notoriously sluggish at overhauling iOS. The final time Cupertino had a serious visible overhaul was when it launched iOS 7 in 2013, which launched a flatter, extra fashionable design. Whereas iOS 26 has its followers and detractors, there’s little doubt that it’s bringing a really completely different look to the iPhone 17 and prior fashions that may help the updates.
Since 2013, Android has had a couple of main design overhauls, together with Materials Design (2014), Materials You (2021), and Materials 3 Expressive (2025). This doesn’t matter an excessive amount of, since designs are very subjective normally, however Android followers have had much more enjoyable with massive new design parts over the past decade and a few change than iOS customers have.
In the end, it’s okay
Simply because Android has crushed the iPhone to the punch doesn’t imply the iPhone 17 goes to be a foul telephone. Apple’s optimizations are legendary, and we’ve got little doubt that the iPhone 17 will likely be among the many prime smartphones launched all 12 months and into 2026. Even so, it’s good to know that Android telephones nonetheless have a place available in the market as being the primary to have one thing. So, if you’d like a bigger battery, extra RAM, or telephones that exceed 120 Hz refresh charges, you’ll want to buy Android.
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