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iPhone 17 Rumored to Feature Major Thermal Design Upgrade

JapanApple said:
I own a pro max 14 series. I have a cooling problem nowadays also, but as I said I wanna see the improvements. I want to see it to believe it. Because every year they say that the cooling Improves.
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Ha but in typical Apple style, they aren’t actually lying but it’s dancing around the actual issue. The cooling probably does improve, but the SoC also gets hotter. So if they weren’t making improvements it would be a real problem, but it’s also not the meaning they want people to take as face value.

It’s like how every year it’s their best iPhone ever. Ok yeah, by definition I should hope so, but what does that really mean.
 
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This could be huge if true, for performance and battery life. The iPhone 17 could end up being a significant upgrade.
 
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Joshuaorange said:
On some things yes. On others, the competition is years behind Apple. How long has Apple had Face ID and still nobody else comes close to replicating it. I’m sure it helps that the A series chips run a lot cooler than Snapdragon.
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It may be that nobody except Apple wants Face ID. Certainly Face ID was an albatross during the masking era. In many ways I prefer Touch ID, except when my fingers are wet or I’m wearing gloves.

I’m not sure the A series chips run any cooler nowadays although that did used to be true. Qualcomm is competitive today.
 
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CarAnalogy said:
Ha but in typical Apple style, they aren’t actually lying but it’s dancing around the actual issue. The cooling probably does improve, but the SoC also gets hotter. So if they weren’t making improvements it would be a real problem, but it’s also not the meaning they want people to take as face value.

It’s like how every year it’s their best iPhone ever. Ok yeah, by definition I should hope so, but what does that really mean.
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I said they claim they do. But older models suffer because of new features (that are added to newer models).
 
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DanneP said:
I really don't like this design. If they want to change things I hope that they figure something else out. The three lenses in a row looks ridiculous.
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The design for the 17s has been completed already. This is not something that would be changing now. Small tweaks sure, but overall design has been in the books for awhile.
 
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Apple is almost certain to invest considerably more resources into "system efficiency" than "system waste heat ejection methods".
 
One of the reasons I upgraded to a iPhone 14 Pro is because they said they improved the cooling, obviously looking backwards they didn’t, in fact the screen gets even dimmer than my old iPhone 11 Pro Max. o_O
 
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DanneP said:
I really don't like this design. If they want to change things I hope that they figure something else out. The three lenses in a row looks ridiculous.
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It’s called the iPhone Pixel Pro without the intelligence.
 
brofkand said:
They have to keep leapfrogging Qualcomm somehow
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They’ve lost this race with the iPhone series A chip. That’s why Apple will release their own integrated modem chip which will be the crippled version of the one from Qualcomm.
 
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I went from an iPhone 13 Pro Max to a iPhone 16 Pro Max.

I look forward to this vapor chamber + higher mAh silicon-carbon battery in my iPhone 18 Pro Max.

I hope these 2 improvements will also show up in a future iPad Pro, AirPod & Macbook Pro when my scheduled upgrade will occur.
 
ProbablyDylan said:
Do they though? How many phone buyers are cross-shopping based on cpu performance? I can't imagine the average iPhone customer switching to Samsung because Snapdragon [nonsensical naming scheme here] is 5% faster in geekbench multicore.
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Samsung new UI looks like iOS 18 but it also comes with real AI that saves you time and a good personal assistant of course.

Next years iPhone will come with Samsung camera systems. The screen is already Samsung as is the ram.

All iPhones are half Samsung already.
 
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FYI better thermal design = higher/longer sustained performance = hotter to the touch, unless the heat is somehow bypassing the user’s hand on its way out.
 
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Do I keep my 14 Pro dealing with SOS/modem issues and wait for the 17 Pro launch? Or just cut my losses and get the 16 Pro? o_O
 
MacRumors said:


The iPhone 17 lineup will feature a vapor chamber heatsink to improve thermal performance, according to a new report.

iPhone-17-Pro-Dual-Tone-Horizontal-Single-Feature.jpg

The news comes from Chinese tech news site MyDrivers, which claims that the entire iPhone 17 lineup, consisting of the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max, will adopt the improved thermal heat spreader.

Vapor chamber technology is already used in many high-end Android devices. Vapor chambers work by spreading heat evenly across a larger surface area, preventing thermal throttling and maintaining consistent performance, which is particularly beneficial in slim devices.

While the notorious thermal issues of the iPhone 15 Pro were seemingly resolved thanks to the iPhone 16 Pro's new aluminum thermal substructure, graphene sheet, and back glass, the report claims that the device still struggles under intense thermal load. A vapor chamber heatsink would apparently resolve this and allow for better sustained performance.

Last year, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that the ‌iPhone 17‌ Pro Max will also have an exclusive cooling system that combines vapor chamber technology with graphene sheets. Contrary to the latest report, Kuo said that the other new iPhone models launching in 2025 will continue to rely solely on graphene sheets.

Article Link: iPhone 17 Rumored to Feature Major Thermal Design Upgrade
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Space is the main issue for Apple with a vapor chamber, because of Mag Safe.
I don't push my iPhone hard, so for me MagSafe, however Apple needs to find a way for both in the future without compromising the rest of the phone, particularly the battery, camera's & MagSafe
 
CarAnalogy said:
Good because, hardware aside, iOS 18 alone makes my iPhone 13 Pro hotter than it has ever run before. And this is just doing basic things like streaming music over wifi with the screen off. Not to the point that it's an issue, but it is noticeable. I can only imagine how the poor A17 Pro runs, considering it was on that one-off process that didn't seem to work out so well.
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Strange, I haven't noticed my 15Pro get any hotter on IOS 18 and it was definetly hotter than my 13 Pro, when both were on IOS 17
 
bradman83 said:
Is the back aluminum? Metal tends to interfere with wireless charging and that's why all iPhones since the X, including the often forgotten iPhone 8, use glass backs whereas the 7 and earlier were aluminum.
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The top 3rd will be aluminium, where the camera's and the processor are located, the rest will remain glass, so as not to interfere with MagSafe charging
 
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