Goodbye titanium, Apple returns to aluminum: why the iPhone 17 pro adopt this material

If it is a point to remember from the keynote From Apple, 2025 edition, this is the accent she put on the equipment. The apple detailed more than usual the materials used inside its smartphones, but also outside. This is particularly the case of iPhone 17 pro, which we now know that their case unibody is composed of aluminum, with the addition of a glass plate in the lower part of their back. And yet, at the launch of iPhone 15 protwo years earlier, Apple had put everything on the use of another metal: titanium, praised in particular for its durability and lightness. Why did Apple changed course? To understand it, you have to look at what is hidden inside the mobiles.

One of the new elements to remember from iPhone 17 pro is the use of a new A19 Pro chip (A19 within theiPhone 17). This chipset In particular, a CPU with 6 cores and a GPU with 6 cores also, and hides under the “plateau”, namely the rectangular zone hosting the photo block of smartphones. Apple therefore redesigned the layout of the components within its devices to optimize the available space, refine its devices and allocate a maximum of battery space that feeds them. The chip is announced ever more powerful – we expect no less from Cupertino – and associated with a unprecedented steam room in its ecosystem. So understand that Apple has taken a particular care to the management of the heating, which brings us back to the beginnings of iPhone 15 promarked precisely by heating problems.

Design and prudence

Aluminum, less “rare” and perhaps suffering from a less premium image than titanium, multiplies the assets, the main one of which is due to the heat better. Combined with this famous steam room, he participated in a prudence strategy led by Apple. Suffice to say that we are looking forward to putting Apple terminals to test our laboratory tests, armed with our thermal camera!

The good points of aluminum do not stop there. Certainly less rare, but also less solid than titanium, it is even lighter, which is not negligible; Let us remember that iPhone 17 pro max weighs the trifle of 233 g, and each gram saved counts. Aluminum being more flexible, it authorizes more daring formats, as is the case with the monobloc shell of iPhone 17 pro, and can more easily be tinted. A possibility exploited by the “cosmic orange” color of Apple’s latest born, which we will leave you care to tell us if it seduces you or not. Let us add that aluminum is less expensive, which probably helps to contain the price of the latest iPhone 17 pro.

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