Apple To Release iPhone 17 Early Next Year

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jul 11, 10:27AM EDT

Key Points

Will iPhone 17e Have AI?
Apple’s Biggest Competitor Is Samsung

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Apple To Release iPhone 17 Early Next Year — © IPhone 16 Pro series (CC BY 4.0) by Jakub CA

According to Bloomberg, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) will release a number of new products in the first half of next year. They include new versions of Macs and iPads. The most important launch during the period will be the iPhone 17e. It is the low priced version of iPhones. The iPhone 16e was released last February. It has a price tag of $599.

The new iPhone 17e will have an upgraded processor called the A19. Apple’s current iPhone chip is the A18. The launch won’t do much for Apple and its investors unless it includes a promised operating system which includes advanced AI. iPhone owners and potential buyers have been looking for these features for months. In the meantime, every major competing tech company has launched AI products which are the center of their software.

Apple has fallen well behind in the consumer software business, although it is still considered the smartphone global leader, a distinction is usually shared with Samsung. Samsung has added AI features to its new foldable phone line-up. The South Korean company recently released its new foldable Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip 7. Each has an AI powered camera and Google’s AI assistant. It is too early to know if foldable phones will go mainstream

Just as serious as the Samsung challenge are a number of Chinese smartphone companies. Together, they have a huge share of the Chinese market, which, with one billion smartphone owners, is by far the world’s largest. Most of these have released AI features. One of the largest smartphone makers, Honor, said it would invest $10 billion in AI features. The company is using a version of Google Gemini.

Apple’s other challenge is whether the iPhone 17 will have a large jump in hardware features compared to the iPhone 16. Most buyers cannot tell whether an iPhone has a more powerful chip or a better camera. The differences are too subtle.

The iPhone 17e may be a step forward for Apple, but it will be a small one, if it does not arrive with major AI features.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.