I broke my 5-year iPhone upgrade rule — here's why

As a former iPhone 14 Pro Max user, I still felt my three-year-old phone gave me everything I needed when I traded it in for an iPhone 17 Pro Max late last year. It still had a Lightning Port and didn't support Apple Intelligence, but I worked around those inconveniences with a MagSafe charger and ChatGPT.

Apple Intelligence hasn't wowed me enough to justify spending $1,000 on a newer iPhone, yet a few features made the upgrade worth it for my family and my sanity: an improved camera array for group selfies and distant photos, an A19 Pro chip, and enhanced scratch resistance.

The iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max upgrade all three rear cameras to 48 MP and offer up to 8x optical zoom on the telephoto lens. The front camera is now 18 MP with Center Stage and a square sensor that lets you take selfies in portrait or landscape without rotating the phone, and Dual Capture records ultra-stabilized video from front and rear cameras at once.

iphone 17, iphone 14, a19 pro, 48 mp, 8x optical, telephoto lens, 18 mp, center stage, dual capture, magsafe