A new Bloomberg report this morning points to meaningful iPhone upgrades coming in 2025. The kind of upgrades that could provide Apple with a great upgrade cycle that's badly needed.

Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman writes: "As early as the beginning of 2025, Apple will launch a new iPhone SE — the first upgrade to its low-end phone since 2022. This model will look like an iPhone 14, with a crisper OLED display that stretches across the full device. And you can also bet that it will have Apple Intelligence.

If Apple can get the price of the new iPhone SE down to around $500, I think it could be a hot seller.

Yet the more important changes will appear next September with the iPhone 17. That lineup will offer a new type of smartphone.

or years, Apple has been looking to find a fourth type of phone that will resonate with customers. In 2020, it attempted to do that by rolling out the iPhone 12 mini. The product was a commercial failure.

So the next logical move was going in the opposite direction. Apple got rid of the mini and came up with the iPhone 14 Plus, a larger version of its standard phone. Just like the mini, the Plus has also largely been a flop. One problem is the price: The iPhone 15 Plus is only $100 less than the more powerful iPhone 15 Pro, so many consumers figure it’s worth shelling out a bit more money for the better phone.

Next year, Apple will give this fourth-model concept another try. The approach this time around: a far thinner design. The idea is to create an “Air” version of the iPhone of sorts, something that sits in between the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro. The most apt comparison is probably to the original MacBook Air from over a decade ago, which was somewhere between the regular MacBook and MacBook Pro.

The combination of the new SE and a slim model could be good enough to return the iPhone to meaningful growth in 2025. I think the Air-style phone will at least be a bigger hit than the mini and Plus devices of recent years."

While it would have been great to see a 2nm chip powering the iPhone 17, many in the industry believe that this could be postponed until the iPhone 18 model. And though some are hoping for a foldable iPhone to fend off Chinese Vendors in Mainland China, Gurman thinks that it's too in the distance yet to make predictions.

In the shorter term, Gurman thinks that the iPhone 16 line-up is a bit of a yawner, though decent enough for those needing to upgrade their iPhones. Gurman notes that "Since Apple Inc. revamped its entire iPhone line in 2020 — rolling out new designs and 5G connections — the device hasn’t had a major overhaul. And that won’t change when the iPhone 16 lineup arrives later this year. With that said, here's what to expect for iPhone 16:  

• The big marketing point will be Apple Intelligence, the company’s new suite of AI capabilities. All the iPhone 16 models will run Apple Intelligence, but it will also work with the iPhone 15 Pro versions. It’s hard to tell how much of an enticement this will be. As I said last week, I don’t think these features alone will be reason to upgrade.
• The non-Pro versions of the iPhone 16 will add the Action button, which was already on the higher-end versions of last year’s model. But Apple is rolling out a more customizable Control Center and changeable Lock Screen options in iOS 18, which may make the Action button less of an asset.
• Speaking of buttons, there will be a new camera control on the right side of the phone (at least on the new Pros). It will operate like a button on a DSLR camera, allowing you to press in slightly to trigger autofocus. A harder press will take the picture. You can also swipe along the button to zoom in and out while shooting photos and videos.
• Another change is probably coming only to the Pro models: slightly bigger screens. The regular Pro will move to 6.3 inches from 6.1, while the Pro Max will now approach 6.9 inches, an increase from 6.7.
• As usual, the colors will be refreshed. For the Pro, expect to see the blue replaced — along with a return of the popular rose gold from a few years ago. And there will be a new chip: the A18. All four models will now have 8 gigabytes of memory as well. That’s the minimum needed to run Apple Intelligence.

Lastly, Gurman writes: "If you have an older iPhone, these are all nice upgrades — but probably not must-haves. I don't expect the new models to fuel a gold rush of purchases for Apple. And, if the latest financial guidance is any indication, the company doesn’t either." For full details on this and other possible Apple device upgrades on the horizon, read the full Bloomberg report.