Apple Keynote 2025 Some Thoughts

What new hardware wise?

Apple are giving us iPhone 17, Pro, Pro Max and Air. Apple Watch Series 11, SE 3 and Watch Ultra 3. AirPods Pro 3. No refresh for iPad or Macs.

Start with iPhone first: titanium body frames, and new CeramicShield. Simple explanation is this is a different type of glass. Gorilla Glass is out for this glass instead. Display is now 120Hz with a variable refresh rate down to 1Hz for always-on display.

Air model is a thinner version. It does come with some serious trade-offs due to the size constraints—being so thin. Wireless-only charging, no ports. Why? Well, 5.5mm compared to around 8.75mm for Pro Max. May not sound like much but that reduces overall battery size, single rear camera. Thermals are likely going to be a problem here but who knows, maybe they have solved that. Thinnest flagship phone on the market, quite a few trade-offs for the price.

iPhone 17 is budget version of Apple lineup, I say budget whilst grinning. Everybody gets 48MP camera. Been some battery improvements across the board. 30W charging is now supported too, which is good news. Now we get the Pro and Pro Max—or what I call, “Take my money Apple please” for minor improvements that make no sense to buy it. Pro and Max both get different style of frame, Okay look here, the deal really: if you have an older iPhone, say 4 or 5 years old, upgrade. If you don’t, don’t really bother.

Hardware refresh for watch sounds good on paper, but again unless you have a very old watch, most likely not worth upgrading for. AirPods Pro 3 however, that looks quite good as an upgrade. Honestly, I’m tempted to buy a pair for my non-Apple phone. But I’m not sure how well it would work for me with a non-iPhone. Better battery life is a good thing here.

Most interesting thing about this hardware refresh was lack of AI. Well, Apple calling it Apple Intelligence, outside of AirPods Pro which got live translation. In real time your AirPods will be able to give you a translation. Yes, similar to a Babel fish—if you don’t know that reference, go search for it. Compared to other tech companies, Apple understood you can’t shoehorn machine learning into everything. Apple’s core business, it does not make much sense to use much of it. It has updated its hardware to be more capable of using it. But that seems to be built into the system more. Things like active summaries. Also appears that Siri’s long-awaited updates, making it smarter, have not really happened yet.

I respect Apple for shipping something when it works and it’s good enough. Not going to lie, I do really like their focus on design and engineering. AirPods for example are truly a very good product. Helpful for deaf users and can be used as hearing aids. BUT the company drags its feet on certain bits of tech and you pay a premium to join the ecosystem and it’s a big premium for less. Software support is impressive and they look after years of hardware. However, due to its design choices, repairing Apple products is a complete pain in the arse or impossible. Which makes their whole green push rather much a joke.

Having said all of that, even with anti-customer ways and pricing, Apple still is compiling products. May not be the best but they do something nobody else does. Focus on quality and the product overall. You’re buying into the experience and cool factor that is the company. I do have to respect Apple quite a bit.