Top Stories: iPhone 17 and iPhone SE 4 Rumors, iOS 18.3 Incoming, and More – MacRumors

Rumors about upcoming Apple hardware updates continue to circulate, with the iPhone 17 lineup, iPhone SE 4, and new Powerbeats Pro all in the news over the past week.On the software side, the public release of iOS 18.3 and related updates is right around the corner while we got a potential first glimpse at what could be some design tweaks for iOS 19 later this year, so read on below for all the details!
Apple is rumored to be releasing an ultra-thin “iPhone 17 Air” later this year, and one recent rumor claims it could be just 5.5mm thick. To provide an idea of just how thin this would be, we’ve mocked up what such a device would look like compared to the current iPhone 16 Pro Max at 8.25mm and the 13-inch iPad Pro at just 5.1mm.In other iPhone 17 rumors, an alleged photo of a pair of rear shells for an upcoming iPhone model appeared this week, with the model presumably being the iPhone 17 Air considering it appears to only feature one rear camera. The unique design includes a horizontal bar across the top of the rear shell, so we’ll have to see whether or not this turns out to be accurate.
Apple seeded release candidate versions of iOS 18.3 and related updates this week, suggesting a full public release is likely to come next week.In addition to previously discussed changes around Apple Intelligence notifications summaries, iOS 18.3 brings several other changes including improvements to the visual intelligence feature for the Camera Control on iPhone 16 models.
Noted mobile phone leaker Evan Blass this week shared some information indicating near-term updates for the iPhone SE, iPad, and iPad Air, but the most intriguing tidbits relate to the next iPhone SE.Despite a recent rumor that Apple could call the new model the “iPhone 16E,” code leaked by Blass refers to the device as “iPhone SE (4th Gen).” That could be a placeholder, but it still casts more uncertainty on the 16E naming possibility.A purported image of the upcoming devices also depicts the fourth-generation iPhone SE as having a Dynamic Island rather than a notch at the top of the display. There have been conflicting rumors about which way the next iPhone SE will go on that front, so we’ll have to wait and see on that one as well.
iOS 19 will feature a redesigned Camera app inspired by visionOS, according to a recent video from Jon Prosser, host of the YouTube channel Front Page Tech.Prosser obtained video of the alleged new Camera app, but he elected to share his own re-created images to protect his sources. The images reveal that the app will allegedly gain translucent menus for various camera controls, with the design of these menus looking very similar to the visionOS interface on the Apple Vision Pro headset.
In September, Apple said that it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and it appears the wireless earbuds are coming very soon.In his Power On newsletter this week, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are “due imminently.” In addition to Apple filing the Powerbeats Pro 2 in regulatory databases last month, Gurman said Apple is planning to hold product briefings with the media “in a week or so” to go over the new features of the wireless earbuds.
Each week, we publish an email newsletter like this highlighting the top Apple stories, making it a great way to get a bite-sized recap of the week hitting all of the major topics we’ve covered and tying together related stories for a big-picture view.So if you want to have top stories like the above recap delivered to your email inbox each week, subscribe to our newsletter!Get weekly top MacRumors stories in your inbox.Image Playground, Genmoji, ChatGPT integration, revamped Mail app, and more.Apple Intelligence is what Apple is calling its artificial intelligence feature set, previewed at WWDC in June 2024. Here’s everything we know.Image Playground is Apple’s dedicated image creation app that can build cartoon-like pictures based on text descriptions.
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Source: https://www.macrumors.com/2025/01/25/top-stories-iphone-17-iphone-se-4-rumors/