Apple’s iPhone 17 line-up includes a new ultra-thin model and $100 price hike for Pro model

CUPERTINO Calif AP Apple on Tuesday rolled out its next generation iPhones which include a new ultra-thin model and a slight price hike for one of its high-end models while the company feels the squeeze of a global bargain war The iPhone line-up includes a new slimmed-down model that will adopt the Air name that Apple already uses for its sleekest iPads and Mac computers In what has become an annual rite for Apple all four new iPhone models will feature better cameras and longer-lasting batteries than last year s lineup The iPhone will all boast at least gigabytes of storage doubling the minimum amount from the last generation We are raising the bar again Apple CEO Tim Cook boasted in front of a crowd gathered in an auditorium named after the company s late co-founder Steve Jobs located on its campus in Cupertino California Grappling with tariffs The new iPhones are the first to be issued since President Donald Trump returned to the White House and unleashed a barrage of tariffs in what his administration says is an attempt to bring overseas manufacturing back to the U S a crusade that has thrust Cook into the hot seat All the iPhone models are still expected to be made in Apple s manufacturing hubs in China and India exposing them to selected of Trump s tariffs Analysts believe the additional fees on iPhones coming into the U S increase the pressure on Apple to raise prices to help protect its profit margins on its most of marquee product Without giving a specific reason Apple will charge for the iPhone Pro an increase of or from previous versions of that model The iPhone Air will start at the price of last year s iPhone Pro Apple is sticking with the same starting price for the basic iPhone at and the iPhone Pro Max at All four models will be in stores Sept Apple s shares closed down Tuesday amid gains in the broader stock field an indication that investors might be worried the company didn t do enough to prop up its profits amid the deal war A breath of fresh iPhone Air The release of the iPhone Air created the biggest buzz of the day as Apple revealed a way to pack in preponderance of the punch of its Pro models while coming up with a fetching design that Forrester Research analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee will prod more trend-conscious consumers to splurge on the latest fashion in tech devices The Air model is just millimeters wide compared to to millimeters for the other iPhone choices There were plenty of crackles and one big pop Chatterjee declared of Tuesday s event One of the crackles came with the introduction of new features aimed at the selfie lifestyle The iPhone models include a front camera with more megapixels for crisper photos along with an Center Stage option that will take advantage of a wider field of view and a new sensor that will enable users to take landscape photos without having to rotate the iPhone Although the majority of the upgrades to the iPhone are similar to the incremental improvements of new years Apple appears to have done enough to bring a sense of newness to the iPhone which has remained the same for too long disclosed PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore Apple also unveiled its latest smartwatches including a healthcare tool that is supposed to help detect probable hypertension and its next generation wireless AirPod headphones Looking for a sales accelerator Apple has been trying to accelerate its enhancement after several years of lackluster sales improvement that has still been enough to maintain its status as a moneymaking machine while raising questions about its ability to innovate Those doubts combined with the uncertainties swirling around tariffs are one of the reasons the company s field value has dropped by so far this year while the tech-driven Nasdaq composite index has gained While the iPhone disclosed last year fared reasonably well the models didn t sell quite as well as analysts had anticipated because Apple failed to deliver all of the artificial intelligence features it had promised including a smarter and more versatile Siri assistant The Siri improvements have been pushed back until next year To truly differentiate and outperform its competition Apple will have to crack AI as a new contextual user-interface predicted Thomas Hussan another analyst for Forrester Research The global contract war has compounded Apple s challenges Both Trump and U S Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have repeatedly insisted that iPhones be made in the U S instead of overseas It s an unrealistic demand that analysts say would take years to pull off and would end in a doubling or even a tripling of the iPhone s current average price of about Cook tried to placate Trump by initially pledging that Apple would invest billion i n the U S over the next four years and then upped the ante last month by adding another billion to the commitment He also gifted Trump a statue featuring a -karat gold base That kind of diplomacy has helped insulate Apple from Trump s the bulk severe tariffs However with the iPhones being brought into the U S still facing duties of about a few analysts speculated the company would raise prices to help preserve its hefty profit margins But for the greater part part Apple and other major smartphone makers such as Samsung and Google are sticking with the same prices as last year Source