Courtesy of Apple

Apple’s iPhone 17 lineup, featuring a redesigned back and new color options.

Apple’s newest iPhone 17, released on Sept. 19 and priced between $799 and $1,029, has sparked more frustration than excitement. 

Though Apple promised longer battery life, a brighter display and a sleek redesign, most users agree that the changes are barely noticeable and in some cases, the phone is worse than previous models. The new aluminum casing, for instance, scratches so easily that customers have jokingly dubbed the problem “Scratchgate.”

But the issues go far beyond negative buzz among users. The release of iPhone 17 represents a broader problem. 

Each year, Apple and other tech giants market their products as revolutionary, yet the upgrades often feel cosmetic. They include features like another color option or a slightly better camera and other random features that add little to daily life.

Take the phone’s much-hyped “liquid glass” design. According to the company, it’s a new translucent coating meant to improve flexibility, durability and drop resistance. 

In reality, it’s still glass and it is just treated with a chemical layer to make it look and feel smoother. While the term liquid glass might sound impressive, most users won’t notice a difference. It’s a perfect example of how companies dress up small technical changes in flashy marketing language to make them sound transformative.

My family has owned multiple iPhones over the years, and each upgrade feels less like an improvement and more like the continuation of a habit. Apple has trained us to equate “new” with “better,” even when it isn’t. This cycle keeps consumers constantly chasing the next big thing while companies profit from minimal effort.

Even the new iPhone Air, launched alongside the iPhone 17 and priced up to $1,399, feels like another example of this. It’s thinner, but nearly identical in performance to the base model. 

This endless cycle of shallow upgrades isn’t just a marketing problem but also an environmental one. Millions of older phones are discarded every year, contributing to e-waste, while new models are produced with enormous energy costs. Yet Apple continues to frame each product as a major step forward, even when that progress often comes at the planet’s expense, and it would make more sense for users to maximize the life of their phones.

At some point, both companies and consumers need to rethink what innovation really means. True innovation should make our lives better, not just shinier. 

If Apple wants to stay ahead of its competitors, it needs to start developing new designs that help solve consumer problems such as a built-in screen or camera protector. Until then, we’re all stuck in the same loop: buying into hype with each new model instead of rewarding actual innovation.