For the iPhone, 2024 was all about the software, as Apple made its long-awaited — some would say much overdue — push into AI features on board its smartphones. And that's likely to continue into 2025, as the Apple Intelligence launch is far from over. Apple still has features it promised last summer to deliver, and then there are the new additions to Apple Intelligence currently in the works that will doubtlessly arrive next fall.
However, while software figures to be a key driver of the iPhone's fortunes in the coming year, 2025 could also bring with it some hardware surprises. We can count on the usual fall iPhone release, of course, and it seems likely an iPhone SE update will get here sooner rather than later. But there also rumblings of an entirely new iPhone that could usher in a new design in what figures to be the most substantial overhaul since 2017's iPhone X release.
