One year on, and a lot has changed…

For me, the iPhone 17 Pro Max was just the latest in a long line of Pro iPhones.

As it turned out, it was the iPhone I used the most and got to know best.

Yet, good as it’s been, it’s now relegated to second-phone & second SIM status, and it may well also be my last iPhone Pro. I know it sounds like a contradiction, but hopefully I can explain why later.

And as we near the release of the 18 Pro range, I wanted to glance back at some of the ‘great new features’ that came to the iPhone 17 Pro & Pro Max to see if I or you ever used them and if we even remember them at all!

My first mistake

That would be the colour!

I could say that, in my defence, I chose Cosmic Orange because it would look great on thumbnails and for pictures in these stories.

Whilst that’s true, I still should have been smart enough to realise that orange wasn’t the way to go. Firstly, it dates very quickly. A year on and the colour looks a little ridiculous if you ask me – it’s too garish. Secondly, and more importantly, is that in public an iPhone Pro Max in Cosmic Orange without a case becomes an immediate target.

I’ll get to the places where this phone has been with me this past year later, but safe to say there have been one or two occasions that come to mind when I felt highly conspicuous using the phone. The bright orange makes it stand out way too much.

I know the colour sounds trivial, but in fact it taught me a lesson. On reflection, I should’ve gone with the Deep Blue. It’s classier, more understated and will age better.

iPhone 17 Pro Max is still in great shape

From a durability standpoint, the 17 Pro range made big advances.

For starters, it’s the first iPhone to be made out of a solid lump of aluminium – extruded is the term that Apple used. They proudly told us it’s the first unibody iPhone – you have to love marketing talk, don’t you?

They decided to move away from the titanium chassis from the year before, which is a shame. I really loved the titanium finish, and it’s one of the things I love best about my current daily, the beautiful iPhone Air.

The switch was apparently made because titanium doesn’t dissipate heat well, but in reality, I don’t know how much of a difference it actually makes. I can’t recall my 16 Pro Max ever getting worryingly hot, so I’m not totally buying into that story.

The 17 Pro also got a deionised-water-filled vapour chamber to better deal with heat, so did we really need to move away from titanium? I bet you’d probably forgotten all about that vapour chamber too, hadn’t you? I know I had!

What I will grant you, though, is that my 17 Pro Max still looks as fresh as the day that I first ever took it from its box. I’m a case & screen protector-free guy with all my iPhones, so I can tell you first-hand that the build quality of this iPhone is the best yet.

Not only are there virtually no scratches and zero dings or dents to the body, but more impressive is that there are zero micro-scratches on the glass either. While other manufacturers seemed to have nailed this a few years ago, we iPhone users continued to get those pesky little scratches no matter how careful you were with your phone.

Not now though! Ceramic Shield 2 has done its job!

Apple said it was 4 times tougher than before – and I’d be willing to believe that’s true! And for good measure, the 17 Pro range even has Ceramic Shield glass on the back, which gives it a lovely, tactile, premium feel.

Looking good

There was, of course, one big change to how the iPhone looked – and that was the camera plateau – more glorious marketing speak!

Practically, it was there because it housed all the phone’s components, giving them space in the body for a bigger battery and that vapour chamber, but it doubled up to negate the ‘camera wobble’ that us case-free runners had forever moaned about.

Externally though, there were no other changes, and overall it was a fairly iterative year for the iPhone Pro.

The Camera Control button remained, although one could argue why? To this day I don’t think I’ve ever used it as Apple intended – there’s just too much friction.

Whilst little else changed on the outside, other than making the display the brightest ever on an iPhone at 3000 nits, a few more things did change inside.

Best cameras ever – of course!

All three cameras on the back are now 48 megapixel Fusion cameras on the 17 Pro & Pro Max. Another benefit of that camera plateau was that it gave Apple enough space to use tetraprism telephoto technology.

That means the 4x zoom is now a 100mm-equivalent focal length at 48MP, and the 8x is a 200mm-equivalent focal length at 12MP.

The numbers sound impressive on the spec sheet, I’ll grant you, but in reality I rarely used either of the zoom lens options. I’m a main lens shooter and generally at 35mm in the 4:3 ratio.

What about you? Which is your favourite lens of choice?

On the front we got an 18MP Centre Stage camera, and a lot was made of the fact it was a sensor was square, which gives four different composition ratios – although again it’s something I only ever used when doing my first review stories and videos.

Because of this one spec change, Open Gate became the buzz term for a while, if you recall!

Not only could you shoot using that square sensor on the front, but if you use something like the Blackmagic app, you can also shoot open gate with the main cameras as well.

I’d assume that this will be the last Pro iPhone to not use an Apple modem, which in my experience has made a huge difference to both call quality and performance and is long overdue in Apple’s flagship device, if you ask me. They’ve tested them out long enough on the 16e, 17e and iPhone Air to know how good they are – it’s time to bring those benefits to the Pros now.

Which brings me neatly around to the features that I bet you’ve never used and have forgotten are on your 17 Pro at all.

Do you remember?

I’ve just watched back last year’s event and reminded myself of the features that the team announced last September that I’d totally forgotten about.

For instance, how often have you used the ProRes Raw codec, the Genlock timecode or the ACES video colour-grading workflow?

And of course, there’s Dual Capture as well! Come on, I bet you’re using that feature daily, right? And although not new last year, when was the last time you delved into Audio Mix to enhance your video’s audio quality or recorded in 4K 120fps?

Be honest – how many of these features have you ever used over the past year? Come to that, do you even care that they’re there at all?

I don’t know if I’m alone in this thought, but I get the feeling that manufacturers, not only Apple, are now looking for names to add to their feature list purely in an attempt to make us part with our cash.

But outside of sounding impressive at an event, are any of these features genuinely useful or just there as we’ve run out of anything else we really need on our phones?

This year’s reported upgrades to the iPhone 18 Pro prove my point further.

A new chip, a better battery, a new colour (beware!), a smaller Dynamic Island and possibly a variable aperture camera are it.

That last one, in the wrong hands, sounds as if it could be a recipe for disaster! Part of the wonder of iPhone photography is the computational side, whereby you just know you’ll get a great shot no matter what. Playing with aperture settings, without knowing what you’re doing, could ruin what would otherwise have been a perfectly good shot.

So, do any of those features tempt you enough to buy this year’s latest and greatest? The cynic in me thinks that may be why Apple has just announced their leasing program. It makes sense, no? The timing is too coincidental.

For some time now, we’ve been at max iPhone, and I think we’ve surely reached the time to wheel things back in a bit.

Enough is enough!

Too good

The iPhone 17 Pro Max was the phone that taught me the most out of all the iPhones I’ve used.

I travelled all over the UK with it – The Cotswolds, Edinburgh, Bath, Birmingham and Bristol. Of course, it’s been to London with me loads, and it also came with me to CES in Vegas too. All the time I was playing with both photo and video camera settings, learning my trade and making content of one form or another.

The 17 Pro Max saw me grow as a creator. I began to use the Blackmagic app to get the best quality vlogging footage that I could, and by using that app I learned even more about video workflows.

From a photographic point of view, I started to use third-party lenses from Reeflex to get even better results from the camera.

I learnt so much from the 17 Pro Max camera that it unlocked something in me. I found I loved videography & in particular photography. The art forms of both appeal to me – so much so that I ended up buying a camera. I’ve recently become published as a photographer too – and all of this was due to the 17 Pro Max.

Perversely, and ironically, the 17 Pro Max ended up doing its job too well!

Because it dawned on me that I was not using the cameras on the 17 Pro Max any more, I reasoned I didn’t need to be carrying around a heavy brick of a phone any more.

All that goodness that they’ve squeezed inside the 17 Pro Max comes at a cost. That array of glass and a bigger battery means it’s heavy and a ballache to carry around all day if you don’t need to be.

These days the 17 Pro Max sits as a spare camera in my camera bag. I have more lens options on the iPhone than I currently have on my Canon. So, if I want an ultra-wide shot or a 300mm-600mm zoom shot, then I’ll reach for the Pro Max with a bolt-on lens from Reeflex.

It does give great results, but when push comes to shove, a camera will always do the job better. That’s no reflection on the iPhone 17 Pro; it’s just a fact! But these days I want the satisfaction of knowing that, good or bad, I shot my pictures on a camera. It’s a pride thing!

This summer I finally switched to the iPhone Air, which was a move long overdue. It does all I want from a phone whilst not intruding on my day. It sits there quietly, and lightly doing its job. The design is gorgeous, and it’s the only phone that has ever stopped me in my tracks.

In my eyes, it goes down as one of the most beautiful iPhones ever. Come at me if you disagree – I’m ready for ya!

Thank you and goodbye

So although I have nothing but praise for the 17 Pro Max, I can’t see why I’d ever buy or use a Pro iPhone again as my daily phone.

I know I should be excited by the iPhone Ultra if that’s what the foldable is to be called, but it’s just not what I’m in the market for any more. Why, having just moved to a lighter, smaller phone, would I want to add bulk back to my daily carry?

It makes no sense!

I’m more excited about what we’ll get on next year’s iPhone Air 2.

We all have very individual use cases for our iPhones, and that is the great thing with Apple’s lineup right now – there’s a phone for everyone and everybody’s needs.

All I’d say is don’t get caught up in the hype – buy the phone that honestly suits you.

The 17 Pro Max is great, probably the most competent iPhone I’ve ever used, but these days, I’d rather throw that money at a new camera body or lens.

All it’s left for me to do is to thank the iPhone 17 Pro Max for everything it’s gifted me, but now it’s time to move it to one side. You gave me a passion and unlocked a new me.

For that, I can only thank you.