Last Tuesday was an expensive day. Apple event day is always an expensive day. New iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods Pro made their debut, and this means that on September 19, many of us will be taking delivery of new Apple stuff. (The larger-than-normal credit-card bill comes later.)

Just because Apple’s selling lots of new stuff doesn’t mean you need to buy it all. (Who needs four new iPhones every year?!) But when it comes to upgrades, some products really jump out at me as more impressive and intriguing than others.

iPhone Air versus iPhone 17 Pro

You usually know what kind of iPhone you want. Pro goes to Pro, Pro Max to Pro Max, regular iPhone to regular iPhone, and iPhone mini and iPhone Plus to… the seven stages of grief, I guess. But this year’s offerings provide a twist, with two phones that both can viably claim to be the right upgrade for people coming from a previous iPhone Pro model.

As someone who is in the market for a new phone this year, I admit that it’s going to be a tough choice between the iPhone Air and the iPhone 17 Pro. Let’s break it down.

iPhone 17 Pro

iPhone Air (2025)

The iPhone Air collects a lot of style points because it’s the thinnest iPhone ever at 5.64 millimeters. The bulk of its cameras and brains are located in the “plateau” at the top of the phone; the rest of the thing is basically just screen and battery. The iPhone Air looks like no other iPhone ever, and will probably feel amazing to hold in your hand.

It’s also a lot more full-featured than you might expect for a phone that sits between the regular iPhone 17 and the iPhone 17 Pro on the price list. It’s got an A19 Pro chip, albeit with one fewer GPU core. It gets the new, potentially game-changing 18-megapixel Center Stage camera for selfies. It’s got an always-on ProMotion display, which is spreading across the entire line this year, eliminating it as a differentiator for the high-end phones.

What will determine the fate of the iPhone Air is how important you rate the iPhone’s camera, and more specifically, its array of cameras. Despite Apple’s corporate spin that the iPhone Air basically has four cameras, the fact is that it has a single camera compared to three on the iPhone Pro. That one camera is incredibly capable–it’s a 48MP model that can also generate 24MP super-resolution images or read only the center of its sensor for a “2x optical zoom,” similar to Apple’s other iPhone cameras the last couple of years. But if you want a bigger zoom, or a proper wide-angle, or good macro photography, or the ability to capture spatial scenes, you are out of luck.

A full 20 percent of the iPhone 16 Pro photos I took last year were taken with my iPhone’s telephoto lens. That gives me pause. I’d be giving up the ability to zoom in much closer to capture images, even if (to be honest) those zoomed-in images aren’t exactly the best the iPhone can offer.

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<path d="M2 0a2 2 0 0 0-2 2v2h1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 1 .5-.5h2V0H2Zm2 10.5H2a.5.5 0 0 1-.5-.5V8H0v2a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h2v-1.5ZM8 12v-1.5h2a.5.5 0 0 0 .5-.5V8H12v2a2 2 0 0 1-2 2H8Zm2-12a2 2 0 0 1 2 2v2h-1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 0-.5-.5H8V0h2Z" fill="#fff"></path>
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Regardless of how Apple spins it, the iPhone Air has a single camera, and that

is reason enough for a lot of customers to pass on it.
</figcaption></figure>

Apple

In a normal upgrade year, it would probably be an easy choice to go with the iPhone Air, just because of the sheer novelty. But the iPhone 17 Pro is itself a surprisingly novel product. As a unibody model carved out of a solid block of aluminum, it’s got a very different look to it, and it comes in one particularly exciting color: Cosmic Orange.

The iPhone 17 Pro’s A19 Pro processor has one more GPU core and an entirely new vapor chamber cooling system that spreads the heat from the processor across the radiative metal body. That aluminum back (and sides) is going to be striking, as well as a little bit warm.

And then there are those cameras. Three of them, including a new 48 megapixel monster that allows the 4x zoom to be center-cropped into the optical equivalent of an 8x zoom. The three cameras allow the iPhone 17 Pro to go from 0.5x all the way to 8x, an enormous range for a phone camera with a bunch of purely optical zoom stops along the way.

So, let’s line them up. Reasons to buy an iPhone Air: Cool look, thin and light, relatively Pro-level features, and a single nice camera that might be good enough. Reasons to buy an iPhone Pro: A new look (but not as cool or thin or light), an awesome orange color, and an incredibly powerful set of cameras.

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</svg>
</button><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The iPhone 17 Pro is available in Deep Blue, Silver, and Cosmic Orange (pictured).</figcaption></figure>

Apple

If you like orange and you like taking pictures with your iPhone, the choice is clear: the iPhone 17 Pro. If you think iPhone photography is a nice-to-have but not a must-have, and you like the idea of having the coolest-looking iPhone ever, the iPhone Air is right for you. If you don’t care about the color options, it really does come down to style versus cameras.

Orange is one of my favorite colors, so I’m torn. I need to hold that iPhone Air in my hands to know for sure, but if I had to guess, I’d choose it over the iPhone 17 Pro and suffer the consequences for my iPhone photography.

Easier choices abound

The rest of Tuesday’s announcements are a little bit easier to digest because many of the “new” features announced are actually rolling out to older models, too.

The AirPods Pro 3 upgrade look