Technologies

Curious About iPhone 17 Rumors and Leaks Ahead of WWDC? Here’s the Scoop

The big question is how much the next iPhone will actually cost. We have a pretty good guess.

Ahead of Apple’s WWDC announcement, the buzz around iPhone 17 rumors and leaks has fans anticipating the release date of the new iPhone line. With the rumored iPhone 17 Pro having better video capabilities and a new slim iPhone 17 Air allegedly having a thin design balanced by improved battery technology, there’s a lot of speculation to cut through.

Not to mention tariffs and how they could potentially affect the price of the new iPhone after President Trump threatened a 25% tariff on all Apple smartphones made outside the US. We’re tracking all the biggest rumors and leaks and sharing what we know so you can have an idea of what’s coming next (and potentially what you won’t see).

iPhone 17 release date: When is the next iPhone coming out?

Over the last several years, Apple has consistently announced its new phones in the first half of September. This will likely be the case with the full iPhone 17 lineup, with the exception of the iPhone 17E, which could arrive in early 2026, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and a report from The Information.

The iPhone 17 lineup may be the last to follow this fall-release model. Starting with the iPhone 18, Apple will reportedly split its phone releases so that lower-cost iPhones launch in the first half of the year and the higher-end Pro models become available later in the year. But that isn’t expected to happen until 2026, so you can likely still expect the iPhone 17 Pro to become available this fall.

Preorders for a new iPhone typically begin the Friday after the announcement, with the phone shipping a week later.

iPhone 17 Price: Will tariffs increase the cost of the next iPhone?

President Donald Trump has raised, lowered and paused tariffs a dizzying number of times since February, all of which could potentially affect the cost of the iPhone 17.

Apple, which could move much of US iPhone production from China to India, has escaped many of the tariff hikes thanks to a reciprocal tariff exemption list that includes many phones, laptops and other electronics that Apple produces.

But all the reprieves appear to be temporary, so tariffs could still potentially affect prices by the time of the iPhone 17 release.

Regardless of how tariffs play out, Apple has plans to raise iPhone prices later this year, The Wall Street Journal reported. Apple apparently plans to ascribe the price increase to better features and design costs so it can avoid pointing the finger at tariffs and incurring the wrath of Trump (like Amazon temporarily did).

CNET Managing Editor Patrick Holland, who’s been reviewing phones for CNET since 2016, points out that the iPhone is overdue for a price bump. He noted that Apple has never increased the price for an iPhone Pro ($999) since the iPhone X was first introduced in 2017.

So yes, you should expect to pay more for the iPhone 17, regardless of tariffs.

New iPhone 17 colors

Rumors of a new color for the iPhone started in April, when Twitter user and leaker Majin Bu (not the Dragon Ball Z character) posted that the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max could get a sky blue option. The latest MacBook Air models come in sky blue, which could give you some idea of the soft hue we’ll see on the iPhone if it goes in the same direction.

For reference, the iPhone 16 and Plus made a splash last year when they debuted pink, teal and ultramarine color options, alongside the standard white and black. The iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max introduced a new color, desert titanium — a restrained shade of peach — alongside the classic natural titanium, white titanium and black titanium options.

iPhone 17 Pro camera bump redesign

The iPhone 17 Pro’s camera has been the subject of multiple rumored changes, most notably that Apple could add a horizontal camera bar that spreads across the width of the phone. The front-facing «selfie camera» could also be getting an upgrade.

Back in January, Bu posted a leaked image on X suggesting that the phone could feature a pill-shaped camera bar that looks a lot like the camera bar on Google’s Pixel 9 phone.

That raised the question of whether the iPhone 17 Pro would align the three camera lenses in a single row or leave them stacked in a pyramid design, as it did with the iPhone 16 Pro.

In February, Bu posted CAD renders of what could be the iPhone 17 lineup, and Front Page Tech also shared iPhone 17 Pro renders in a video. Both showed horizontal camera bars for the iPhone 17 Pro models that keep the stacked lens layout.

And as for your selfies: The front-facing camera will reportedly be upgraded from the iPhone 16’s 12 megapixels to 24 megapixels on all iPhone 17 models, according to analyst Jeff Pu.

Pu wrote in March that the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max will feature a 48-megapixel telephoto rear camera, up from 12 megapixels on the iPhone 16 Pro models. That would mean all three cameras on the iPhone 17 Pro models — Fusion, ultrawide and telephoto — would be 48 megapixels.

Leaked Specs: iPhone 17 vs. iPhone 17 Pro vs. iPhone 17 Pro Max

Specs for the iPhone 17 are more grist for the rumor mill.

Display

After the backlash over Apple not updating the 60Hz display on the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus, rumors of a 120Hz display (Pro Motion) on all iPhone 17 models could be welcome news, along with possibly adding the always-on display to the baseline model.

One feature you likely won’t see with the new iPhone 17 Pro models is an antireflective display, which CNET’s Patrick Holland called one of the best attributes of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. A source told MacRumors that Apple had to scrap plans for a more scratch-resistant display because of scaling issues with the coating process.

Additionally, Pu said the iPhone 17 Pro Max may reduce the size of its Face ID sensor, so it could have a narrower Dynamic Island, but the other iPhone 17 models would likely stay the same size.

Memory

Apple Intelligence and AI are likely to play more prominent roles with the iPhone 17. To support the new features, all the iPhone 17 models will step up to 12GB of RAM, tipster Digital Chat Station reported in April. Kuo has also suggested this could happen, according to Digital Trends.

Considering that the iPhone 16 lineup had 8GB of RAM across all models, this could be a big upgrade for the iPhone 17.

Frame

There’s been plenty of discussion about whether the iPhone 17 Pro will ditch its titanium alloy frame for an aluminum one. The most recent rumors predict the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max will all have aluminum frames, according to Pu.

iPhone 17 battery life

The iPhone 17 Air might have to scale back on battery life to make a thinner design possible, although the latest rumor from AppleInsider is that it might use a silicon-anode battery that could help extend the battery life. However, rumors are that the iPhone 17 Pro will likely get a battery boost.

In May, Pu said the baseline iPhone 17 will likely feature Apple’s in-house A19 chip, while the Pro could have the A19 Pro chip. The iPhone 16 is powered by an A18 chip, which offers improved efficiency for better battery life.

Are new iPhone rumors and leaks to be trusted?

Here’s the part where I come in and say: Everything’s a rumor until Apple officially releases the next iPhone. Rumors and speculation leading up to the iPhone’s release are often based on insider knowledge or leaked information from teams working on the iPhone’s designs, but those designs are works in progress — not necessarily the final product.

Technologies

I Used to Tell People Wi-Fi 7 Routers Were a Waste of Money. CNET’s Lab Data Just Proved Me Wrong

Technologies

My Camera Test: Comparing the $499 Pixel 10A With the Galaxy S25 FE, Motorola Edge

The Pixel 10A’s cameras are similar to those on the 9A, but it still performs quite well compared to other phones in its price range.

Google’s $499 Pixel 10A uses nearly the same cameras as last year’s Pixel 9A, but I wanted to see how its photos directly match up to its midrange Android rivals: the $650 Samsung Galaxy S25 FE and the $550 Motorola Edge.

I traveled with all three phones around St. Petersburg, Florida, checking how flexible each was in different environments, from bright outdoor settings to an indoor coffee shop and an evening brewery. All three environments can be challenging for the small image sensors on each phone.

While I find the cameras on all three phones to have different strengths and weaknesses depending on the setting, I’m quite impressed with how the Pixel 10A keeps up. In my tests, the photos include lots of detail, even though certain settings appear to involve a lot of processing to improve them.

Wide and telephoto cameras

Starting with photos taken on the sidewalk in downtown St. Petersburg, I notice that all three phones handle bright sunlight slightly differently, especially how it’s depicted on the street.

For the Pixel 10A, the sun provides a slight exposure mark over the Bay First sign at the top of the frame, but it remains fairly cordoned off to focus on the rest of the streetscape. Zooming in, you can see the Century 21 location, but the street is captured in the most detail, with the phone’s camera maintaining its natural gray color.

For both the Galaxy S25 FE and the Motorola Edge, the sun has a more pronounced effect on the rest of the image. The pavement’s color is notably brighter. I also find both the S25 FE and the Edge have slightly more clarity on the business signs on the Bay First building, including the aforementioned Century 21 logo.

Since the S25 FE and the Edge each include a telephoto camera that supports 3x optical zoom, I took a photo at that zoom with each phone. The Pixel 10A uses digital zoom on the phone’s 48-megapixel wide camera, but a lot of the scene’s detail remains preserved.

The Pixel’s zoom photo provides a clear view of the 7th St N sign, the trees and the plants. However, if you look further back at the next intersection, you’ll notice that the 7th St S sign and the Colony Grill are much harder to see. It’s those smaller details that are captured by the S25 FE and the Edge, both aided by telephoto cameras, making them more visible.

Of the three zoom photo examples, I feel like the S25 FE has the best color reproduction while also retaining details like the signs further back. Even though the photo was taken with the S25 FE’s 8-megapixel telephoto camera rather than its 50-megapixel wide camera, the colors remain complementary when comparing the 1x to the 3x. Meanwhile, the Edge’s 10-megapixel telephoto camera looks quite a bit different from the 50-megapixel wide camera — the whole image has a more yellowish hue.

Ultrawide cameras

Moving inside the Southern Grounds coffee shop, I decided to use the ultrawide cameras to capture my sausage, egg and cheese on toast. The three photos came out wildly different.

The Pixel 10A’s 13-megapixel ultrawide and S25 FE’s 12-megapixel ultrawide have a more balanced set of colors and details, in my opinion. The wheat toast appears lighter in the Pixel’s photo than in the darker hues captured by both the S25 FE and the Edge.

When zooming into my notebook, however, the Pixel and S25 FE captured more of the page markings, details that blur together more in the photo taken by the Edge. While the Edge’s 50-megapixel ultrawide camera is a higher-spec number, I noticed it had a harder time distinguishing toast levels, giving more of it a darker look. If I hadn’t eaten it myself, I’d have thought it was burned based on the Edge’s photo.

Night photography

Moving over to a nighttime setting, I used the three phones to take photos outside of 3 Daughters Brewing. I felt like all three did a decent job at producing the colors of the building, but they differ in how they handle light sources.

Both the Pixel and the S25 FE tone back the glare produced by the various lighting fixtures. Meanwhile, the Edge’s photos show noticeable streaks that dominate the sky. When inspecting the photos more closely, I find that the Galaxy captured a sharper view of the furniture, like in the Connect 4 set next to the blue chairs in the center of the frame. The same details are visible in the Pixel’s and the Edge’s depictions of the scene, but they appear smudgy by comparison.

This type of scene needs to take advantage of a phone’s processing power in order to iron out visibility issues, and I do find that the Edge appears to come up short here in this regard, with a lot of noticeable image noise.

Selfies

Each phone takes selfies with noticeable differences in style and color choices. For this test example, I’m in a well-lit daytime room with natural light from a window. The 12-megapixel front-facing camera on Google’s Pixel 10A brightened up my face as if there was a light in front of me, and captured a decent amount of the details of my hair and face.

The front-facing camera on Samsung’s Galaxy S25 FE shows a noticeably darker color tone, but it still captures a similar shade of orange on the wall behind me. Of the three photos, I felt like the S25 captures the most details, including strands of hair, and defaulted to a closer crop than the other two.

The photos taken by the 50-megapixel selfie camera on the Motorola Edge feel a bit smoothed out. The orange color on the wall is noticeably different from the Pixel and the S25 FE, though it does capture a lot of my face details, from hair strands to the fabric textures on my shirt.

The $499 Pixel 10A camera keeps up and, in some cases, exceeds the detail captured by the slightly more expensive $550 Motorola Edge and $650 Galaxy S25 FE. I’m quite impressed by how the Pixel camera handles colors and low-light environments, but the phone’s processing work sometimes makes scenes appear brighter than they are in real life.

The Galaxy S25 FE is no slouch either, with a third telephoto lens for capturing more detail farther away. While I did find the Motorola Edge to struggle in low light, it is one of the lowest-cost phone options currently available for someone who must have a 3x optical telephoto camera.

But if you can live without the telephoto lens, the Pixel 10A’s low cost and photography abilities will likely be a good fit for most people.

Google’s Pixel 10A Looks Stylish for a Low-Cost Flagship Phone

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Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for March 14 #741

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for March 14, No. 741.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Does today’s date seem memorable to you? If so, today’s NYT Strands puzzle might be easy. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: A math teacher’s favorite dessert.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: 3.14

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

RITE, SPIT, TIPS, STAT, STATE, GIVE, RUST, FINE, LAZE, SURE, PEAL

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

VENT, CRUST, FRUIT, EDGES, GLAZE, FILLING, LATTICE

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is HAPPYPIDAY. To find it, start with the H that’s six rows down and three to the right from the upper-left corner, and make — well, a pie shape.