The iPhone 17 Pro's Design Is Polarizing: Will We Ever Learn To Love It?

For the first time since the iPhone 11 Pro, Apple has drastically changed the design of the top-of-the-line iPhone. The iPhone 17 Pro has a brand new aluminum unibody design with a camera bar that the company calls a "plateau that creates additional space for internal components." Similar to the iPhone 11 Pro — where customers quickly called the camera module a cooktop — this new design has split people's opinions. While some dig the new orange, blue, and silver options, it's safe to say that Apple's new bold design language is surely polarizing.

Apple has always used glass at the back of the iPhone for MagSafe and wireless charging capabilities, right from the iPhone X. This year, though, the iPhone 17 Pro uses an aluminum chassis that also stretches all the way to the back, with a glass window at the center to enable wireless charging. Along with a change in design, it's also surprising how Apple ditched safe colorways like Black and Gold, and decided to take an unconventional route. These drastic developments beg the question: Will we learn to love Apple's new design?

Right now, I'm still not sold on the iPhone 17 Pro's new design, even though it means getting a more powerful device with better heat dissipation. What I've liked the most about the Pro iPhone models over the years is that they always had sober color options, so it was always easy to pick my favorite version, even if it meant choosing the same black variant over and over again. With the iPhone 17 Pro, Apple has gone all-in with the Cosmic Orange colorway, which is a bit too much for my liking. This is coming from someone who has rocked several blue iPhones, a Rose Gold iPhone 6s, a purple iPhone 14 Pro Max, and more over the years.

The Silver option seems like the most elegant one to recommend for most people. What's promising, though, is that the company is rumored to introduce a foldable iPhone next year, followed by a 20th anniversary celebration in 2027. This could potentially mean that the iPhone could see a redesign sooner than expected, so this plateau design from the iPhone 17 Pro may not last for a long time. That said, the iPhone 17 Pro enters pre-orders on September 12, 2025, with the official release a week later. We'll hopefully have a better opinion about the design once we get our hands on the phone.