At a quick glance, you might think that this year has been business as usual for iPhones, given that once again we've seen more evolution in Apple smartphones than revolution; Additionally, there is no foldable iPhone yet.
But if you look a little deeper, you'll realize that Cupertino has made great strides with its ubiquitous smartphone in 2025. And that's exactly what I've done in this article; I've looked at what's been good, bad and downright ugly with iPhones over the past 12 months.
So let's get into it and if you have any thoughts, head to the comments below after you've read my review.
The good: Solid updates, iPhone 17 hardware on par with Android
While there have been no changes to the iPhone's overall features or overall offering, both the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro got a great set of updates that make them worth considering if an upgrade is needed.
The iPhone 17 Pro Max and its smaller brother got a new rear camera module that now houses the A19 Pro chip, leaving room for a vapor chamber underneath that not only offers more cooling and therefore sustained performance, but also keeps hot components away from the user's fingers unless they hold the phone in a strange way.
Once again, it's not a revolution for iPhones, but a solid change.
The iPhone 17 arguably fared even better on the upgrades front. It has a larger, brighter screen, with thinner bezels that allow a 6.3-inch screen to be placed in the same space where a 6.1-inch screen once was.
That screen is now also a 120Hz Pro Motion, and Apple is finally no longer burdening non-Pro phones with a slow 60Hz screen (which even the best cheap phones had long ago abandoned). That update alone has made the transition from an iPhone 16 Pro Max to an iPhone 17 quite easy for me.
Additionally, all four new iPhones have Apple's latest 48MP Fusion main camera, which uses a lot of sensor cropping to offer a better zoom range without increasing the number of rear cameras. It's early days, but in my short time with the iPhone 17, I've found that this Fusion camera (previously exclusive to the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max) works quite well.
The bad: the iPhone Air is mediocre, not so smart Apple Intelligence
While it grabbed the headlines, the iPhone Air is arguably a failure for Apple. In our review of the iPhone Air, Jacob Krol praised the phone's slim design, but it's not that mainstream iPhones are particularly bulky or heavy.
And for the price, Apple only offers a rear camera. However, then equip the slim phone with a powerful A19 Pro chip… I'm not sure that makes much sense.
And I think consumers might agree, since there haven't been many positive sales reports for the iPhone Air and I haven't seen many actual Air phones on the market. Perhaps it's more of a technology and design platform for Apple to integrate into mainstream iPhones; We'll have to see what a likely Apple event in September 2026 brings.
On other negatives, Apple Intelligence limped out of a rocky launch last year and now feels much more prominent and widely available. In practical use, however, it still falls short, as notification summaries are partially inaccurate, Siri relies too much on ChatGPT, and the intelligence features built into Camera Control are largely hit and miss.
Talking to phone editor Axel Metz, he told me that he's turned off most Apple Intelligence features aside from Siri suggestions, cleaning, and visual intelligence, and that in use he finds Google Gemini on iOS to be much more effective than Apple's native AI tools. Therefore, there is definitely room for improvement in 2026.
The Ugly: Overwhelming Orange, iOS 26 Drawbacks
Now, I will caution that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but unlike Editor-at-Large Lance Ulanoff, I can't say I'm a big fan of Apple's new Cosmic Orange color for the iPhone 17 Pro phones.
While it is striking, I don't think it is a very 'Apple' color. Rather, Cosmic Orange feels like a color that Samsung would come up with, and I would have expected a more pastel shade from Apple, rather than one that looks almost like a candy coating.
So of course the iPhone 17 Pro I have to use for work is Cosmic Orange; Such is the cruel irony of life. Maybe I like it, but instead of releasing such a polarizing color, I wish Apple would bring back its hits, like the fantastic dark green that used to adorn its best iPhones.
As for other ugliness of the iPhone, I (and a few others on the Internet) have found that iOS 26 is not up to the standard I would have expected from Apple. I encountered a few bugs and performance issues on my iPhone 16 Pro Max and while some found the update to be fine, in my experience, it was a battery drainer and just felt clunky.
I also can't say that I was convinced by the design of the Liquid Glass material. It looked elegant in elegant presentations, but in general use I find it a bit fiddly and it seems that form has triumphed over function; It's not something I expect from Apple. So, I think there is room for improvement with iOS next year.
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