This tipped iPhone 17 Pro upgrade has me way more excited than I ought to be

As we near September 9 and the next Apple event^[1], we’re all poised for new iPhones; these will form the iPhone 17^[2] family, if Apple^[3] sticks to its usual naming convention. And for the most part, I’m a tad ambivalent about it. I adore using the iPhone 16 Pro Max,^[4] but I’m not convinced Apple will offer notable upgrades over it with the next-gen phones.

But then I edited our article on the rumored vapor chamber cooling system for the iPhone 17 Pro models^[5] and felt a twinge of excitement.

Am I unwell? It’s 2025, and I’m feeling enthusiastic about an approach to cooling some of the best Android phones^[6] have had for some time. Maybe I am, but not for that reason. Allow me to explain.

Vapor chamber cooling works by using a liquid-filled metal chamber that lets said liquid change to a gas when it absorbs heat. This vapor then spreads across the metal surface to dissipate heat away from sensitive components like the chipset. It’s a way to better cool CPU and GPU components without taking up too much space; you’ll find such cooling in the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra^[7].

So it’s nothing new, but it’s exciting to me for two reasons.

In vapor’s chambers

The first is Apple seems to be going a little harder on gaming than it has previously. Not only do we have Apple Arcade^[8], but there are also console-quality games available on iPhone with recent chips. I took Sniper Elite 4 for a spin^[9] not too long ago, appreciated the ambition of getting Death Stranding^[10] running on a phone that’s a heck of a lot smaller than a Nintendo Switch^[11], and am poised to give Hitman World of Assassination^[12] a spin on my iPhone 16 Pro Max^[13].

While there are a load of Android gaming phones, Google’s mobile operating system^[14] has yet to embrace such ports of console-grade games.

But this comes with a catch: iPhones can get quite warm when running such games, which can make them burn through battery life and be uncomfortable to hold.

A vapor chamber cooling system, particularly given Apple’s track record of neatly implementing new tech, could solve this issue and make the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max^[15] feel like true gaming phones, only without the ostentatious design.

The second aspect is very pertinent to me. I can’t get proper fiber internet at my apartment, despite being on a main road in London. So when it comes to making a hefty download, say a PS5^[16] or Xbox Series X^[17] game, I tend to tether these consoles to my iPhone as its 5G connection is far faster than my home internet.

There’s a catch here: extended 5G connectivity tends to eat my phone’s battery, as well as make it a bit hot. When I then put my iPhone in charge to cope with the gulping of electrical juice 5G demands, the phone can get so warm it kills the charging; this is a safety measure to stop the lithium-ion battery from overheating.

Of course, this is a pain, especially if my iPhone runs out of power before a download is complete. It also makes using the phone while it’s piping data about quite uncomfortable.

Now I don’t expect a vapor chamber cooling system to completely mitigate this, but I reckon it could certainly make things a lot cooler and thus more efficient.

So that’s why I’m now suddenly a lot more interested in the still rumored iPhone 17 Pro models.

And I’m hoping Apple showcases this with a clutch of new advanced iPhone games… Cyberpunk 2077 seems to be getting ported to a lot of machines,^[18] so why not to Cupertino’s next phones?

More iPhone 17 musings