iPhone 17 Rumored to Feature Major Thermal Design Upgrade

The iPhone 17 lineup will feature a vapor chamber heatsink to improve thermal performance, according to a new report.

iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Horizontal Single Feature
The news comes from Chinese tech news site MyDrivers, which claims that the entire ‌iPhone 17‌ lineup, consisting of the ‌iPhone 17‌, ‌iPhone 17‌ Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌ Max, will adopt the improved thermal heat spreader.

Vapor chamber technology is already used in many high-end Android devices. Vapor chambers work by spreading heat evenly across a larger surface area, preventing thermal throttling and maintaining consistent performance, which is particularly beneficial in slim devices.

While the notorious thermal issues of the iPhone 15 Pro were seemingly resolved thanks to the iPhone 16 Pro's new aluminum thermal substructure, graphene sheet, and back glass, the report claims that the device still struggles under intense thermal load. A vapor chamber heatsink would apparently resolve this and allow for better sustained performance.

Last year, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that the ‌‌iPhone 17‌‌ Pro Max will also have an exclusive cooling system that combines vapor chamber technology with graphene sheets. Contrary to the latest report, Kuo said that the other new ‌iPhone‌ models launching in 2025 will continue to rely solely on graphene sheets.

Related Roundup: iPhone 17
Buyer's Guide: iPhone 17 (Buy Now)
Related Forum: iPhone

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Top Rated Comments

Brian_v11 Avatar
9 months ago
Found on MSN.com

Attachment Image
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ricketysquire Avatar
9 months ago
iPhone 20, now water cooled with a gigantic argb AIO coolersticking out of it.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ATmahe Avatar
9 months ago

iPhone 20, now water cooled with a gigantic argb AIO coolersticking out of it.
Of course on the diagonal opposite corner of the camera bump, to keep the wobble :D
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ProbablyDylan Avatar
9 months ago

They have to keep leapfrogging Qualcomm somehow
Do they though? How many phone buyers are cross-shopping based on cpu performance? I can't imagine the average iPhone customer switching to Samsung because Snapdragon [nonsensical naming scheme here] is 5% faster in geekbench multicore.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Andres Cantu Avatar
9 months ago
They’ve been saying this for years. I’ll believe until I see it.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dannyyankou Avatar
9 months ago
The funny thing is that iPhone 16 Pro Max battery already beats the Samsung S24 Ultra by an hour (Tom’s Guide) without this new thermal design. When Samsung switched to a vapor heatsink on the S23 Ultra, it improved battery life by 3 hours, with the same 5,000 mAh battery.

So the 17 Pro Max might push 20 hours.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)