
The iPhone 17 Pro Max Leaks Deep Dive: What to Expect from Apple's Next Flagship
Watch this video on YouTube. The New iPhone 17 Air: Slimmer, Lighter, and Controversial
Apple is reportedly set to unveil the iPhone 17 Air, a model designed with portability and sleekness in mind. Featuring a 6.6-inch display and weighing just 145 grams, it is expected to be the thinnest and lightest iPhone to date. This design will likely appeal to users who prioritize aesthetics and convenience, but it comes with a trade-off: a smaller 2800mAh battery. While Apple's rumored software optimizations could help extend battery life, questions remain about whether these improvements will be sufficient for heavy, all-day use. The iPhone 17 Air's focus on portability may make it ideal for casual users, but power users might find the reduced battery capacity limiting. Charging Technology Gets a Boost
Charging capabilities are set to see a significant upgrade in the iPhone 17 series. A new MagSafe charger supporting the Qi 2.2 standard is rumored to enable wireless charging speeds of up to 50W, drastically reducing charging times compared to previous models. Additionally, reverse wireless charging is expected to debut, allowing users to charge accessories like AirPods or an Apple Watch directly from their iPhone. This feature could enhance convenience for those deeply integrated into the Apple ecosystem. However, the potential impact of reverse wireless charging on the phone's overall battery life remains a point of speculation. If implemented effectively, these advancements could redefine how users interact with their devices and accessories. Updates to the Standard iPhone 17
The base iPhone 17 model is expected to receive several incremental yet impactful updates. It will reportedly feature a slightly larger 6.3-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate, offering smoother visuals. However, unlike the Pro models, this refresh rate is rumored to be non-adaptive, which could result in less efficient battery usage during prolonged use. The device is expected to retain the A18 chip and 8GB of RAM from its predecessor, making sure reliable performance for everyday tasks. Apple is also rumored to be experimenting with new color options, including purple and green, to appeal to a broader audience. These updates suggest a focus on enhancing the user experience while maintaining a balance between performance and affordability. Pro Models: Refined Design and Camera Upgrades
The Pro models, including the iPhone 17 Pro Max, are rumored to feature a more refined design with a sleeker Dynamic Island and a smaller overall footprint. This improvement is attributed to advancements in lens technology, which allow for a more compact layout. Camera upgrades are also a focal point, with a 48MP telephoto sensor promising enhanced image quality. However, the optical zoom capability may be reduced from 5x to 3.5x, a change that could disappoint photography enthusiasts seeking greater versatility. In terms of aesthetics, the Pro models are expected to retain their signature color options, with the addition of a sophisticated sky blue variant. These updates suggest that Apple is prioritizing subtle refinements over dramatic changes, aiming to cater to both casual and professional users. Key Highlights of the iPhone 17 Series
The iPhone 17 lineup introduces a mix of advancements and compromises, offering features that cater to a diverse range of user preferences. Key highlights include: The introduction of the iPhone 17 Air, emphasizing portability with a slim design and lightweight build, but featuring a smaller 2800mAh battery.
Faster wireless charging with the new MagSafe charger supporting Qi 2.2, allowing speeds of up to 50W, along with the debut of reverse wireless charging.
A non-adaptive 120Hz refresh rate on the base iPhone 17 model, which may impact battery efficiency during extended use.
Camera enhancements on the Pro models, including a 48MP telephoto sensor, though with a reduction in optical zoom capability from 5x to 3.5x.
New color options across the lineup, including purple and green for the base model and a sky blue variant for the Pro models.
These updates reflect Apple's strategy of blending innovation with practicality, though certain trade-offs, such as reduced battery capacity and optical zoom, may spark debate among users. What to Expect Moving Forward
The iPhone 17 series appears to strike a balance between innovation and refinement, catering to a wide range of user preferences. With a September launch anticipated, more details are likely to emerge in the coming months, shedding light on Apple's design and feature decisions. Whether you're drawn to innovative features like faster charging and camera enhancements or prefer practical usability, the iPhone 17 lineup promises to deliver a compelling mix of advancements and compromises. As Apple continues to refine its approach, the iPhone 17 series could set the tone for future iterations of the company's flagship smartphone.
Gain further expertise in iPhone 17 Pro Max by checking out these recommendations.
Source & Image Credit: Demon's Tech Filed Under: Apple, Apple iPhone, Top News
Latest Geeky Gadgets Deals
Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Daily Mirror
33 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Apple fans rushing to snap up iPhone 16 Pro Max deal from Sky
The iPhone 16 Pro Max is Apple's flagship phone and now Sky is selling the device for a cheaper monthly cost Payday joy is upon us, and for folks itching to upgrade their handset, it could be the perfect moment to take the plunge. Right now, Sky has bridled its most sought-after phone deal – a contract on the iPhone 16 Pro Max. As Apple's crème de la crème offering, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is up for grabs from Sky at a reduced monthly rate for a limited spell. At £35 per month, tech enthusiasts can bag an iPhone 16 Pro Max on a 36-month term. Boasting a whopping 6.9-inch display, the beefy A18 Pro chip, and superior battery endurance compared to older models, the iPhone 16 Pro Max also comes equipped with Apple Intelligence, designed to boost productivity for Apple devotees. Over the course of the three-year agreement, customers will shell out £1260 – and remember, this figure doesn't cover your data package, so bear that in mind when considering the purchase. For those on the hunt for more options, Carphone Warehouse flings open its doors with a smorgasbord of tempting offers as well. Or, if you're an Apple zealot, check out Giffgaff where the iPhone 16 Pro is yours for a modest £24 month plan, albeit with a slightly steeper initial £25 expense. Snap up the iPhone 16 Pro Max from Sky for £35 a month £999 £35/a month SKY GET DEAL Product Description When our tech experts at the Daily Express got their hands on the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max to review, they were extremely happy with the device. Tech guru Dave Snelling shared: "The iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max get some nice updates including those bigger displays, improved battery life and faster charging. "The A18 Pro chip sets a new standard and the rear camera is better than ever. There's also the addition of that Camera Control button on the side and you get some new colours to choose from including the striking Desert Titanium. Apple Intelligence will also arrive before Christmas making these devices even smarter." However, he did suggest that those with an iPhone 15 Pro or similar might want to hold off upgrading. He added: "These are great iPhones but if you have an iPhone 15 Pro in your pocket there's probably not enough here to warrant an upgrade especially as those 2023 devices will also get Apple Intelligence via a software update. "That said, if you haven't upgraded in a while and want the best iPhone of the bunch then the 16 Pro and Pro Max are top-notch call makers that will be contenders for phone of the year."

Finextra
an hour ago
- Finextra
Deep Dive: Stripe vs. Adyen – Comparing Product Stacks and Pricing: By Sam Boboev
Two fintech heavyweights are vying for dominance in global payments: Stripe and Adyen. Both power a substantial share of online commerce, yet they've taken different paths to the top. Stripe, the Silicon Valley darling, built its name with developers and startups; Adyen, the Dutch powerhouse, quietly became the backbone for many large global retailers. Product managers and fintech founders on both sides of the Atlantic (especially in the US and EU) often face a strategic choice between these platforms. This deep dive examines how Stripe and Adyen stack up – from their product offerings to pricing models – and why it matters. Spoiler: Both companies have overlapping product categories (payments, fraud prevention, in-person solutions, and more), but their strengths and weaknesses can make each a better fit for different customer profiles. Let's dig in. The Payments Giants at a Glance It helps to frame the comparison with scale and performance. In 2024, Stripe processed about $1.4 trillion in total payment volume (TPV), growing 38% year-over-year, while Adyen was close behind with €1.29 trillion (+33% YoY). These figures underscore that both companies handle enormous transaction flows (roughly on par with ~1–1.5% of global GDP each). Adyen has long been profitable – it sustained an impressive ~50% EBITDA margin in 2024 – whereas Stripe historically reinvested for growth but finally achieved full-year profitability in 2024. In other words, Adyen is the rare fintech operating at bank-like profit levels, while Stripe proved its business model can scale financially. Both are now plowing resources into R&D and expansion, setting the stage for an intense rivalry. Stripe launched in 2010, targeting developers and small online businesses with easy-to-use APIs. Its strategy was bottom-up: win the hearts of startups and SMBs, then gradually move upmarket. Adyen, founded in 2006, took almost the opposite approach – a top-down focus on large enterprises and global retailers. Adyen built a single unified platform for 'unified commerce' (online, in-app, and in-store payments all in one), directly connecting to card networks and local payment methods. This made Adyen the go-to for many big multichannel merchants (think Uber, Spotify, Microsoft, McDonald's, H&M and the like), while Stripe became synonymous with the startup economy and SaaS world. Today, however, their offerings overlap significantly. Stripe now serves 50% of the Fortune 100 companies in some capacity, and Adyen is expanding its reach to mid-sized clients and platforms. Both are truly global – Stripe is used in 195+ countries with support for 135+ currencies, and Adyen similarly supports transactions worldwide (150+ currencies and dozens of local methods). A quick external perspective sums it up well: 'Adyen is better for midsize or large companies with multiple sales channels, whereas Stripe is good for small, online businesses.' In practice, Stripe's flat-rate pricing and plug-and-play simplicity make it popular among SMBs and tech startups. Adyen's custom approach and interchange-plus pricing appeal to high-volume, omnichannel businesses that can integrate a more complex solution. But these lines are blurring. Stripe has been aggressively courting larger enterprises (even Amazon inked a deal in 2023 to have Stripe process a significant portion of its payments across the US, Europe, and Canada). Meanwhile, Adyen is indirectly serving many SMBs via platform partnerships (for example, when Etsy or eBay use Adyen as their payments engine, thousands of small sellers are on Adyen's rails). The competitive arena is set: both companies offer a broad payments platform, but how do their product stacks and pricing compare in detail? Core Payments Infrastructure At their heart, both Stripe and Adyen are payments processors – they enable businesses to accept a wide range of payment methods and get paid online (and offline). Let's compare their core payments capabilities: Stripe and Adyen each support an extensive array of payment methods: global credit/debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, etc.), digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc.), bank transfers, and region-specific options (from **SEPA Direct Debit in Europe to ACH in the US, Alipay and WeChat Pay in Asia, Klarna/Affirm for BNPL, and many more). Stripe advertises access to 100+ payment methods out-of-the-box with a single integration. Adyen similarly prides itself on being a one-stop solution to 'offer your customers all their preferred payment methods with a single integration'. For example, a merchant using either platform can easily offer local favorites like iDEAL in the Netherlands or Boleto in Brazil alongside global cards. One difference is how these methods are integrated. Adyen built direct connections to many local payment schemes and card networks through its own licenses. This 'single platform' approach can improve authorization rates and reduce hops in the transaction process. Indeed, Adyen highlights its direct acquiring connections to Visa/Mastercard and even domestic networks, claiming it can optimize approval rates via intelligent routing (their RevenueAccelerate tools). Stripe, on the other hand, initially partnered with banks for acquiring in various regions, but over time it also obtained regulatory licenses and built out global infrastructure (Stripe has regulatory licenses in multiple jurisdictions and data centers worldwide, ensuring transactions are processed locally where possible for speed and better success rates). Both companies now can offer very high uptime (Stripe boasts 99.999% historical uptime, and Adyen is known for reliability as well) and the ability to settle funds in a currency of the merchant's choosing. Adyen explicitly lets merchants 'choose when and in which currency' to receive payouts, a flexibility important for international businesses. Stripe is almost universally lauded for its developer-friendly APIs and documentation. It provides client libraries in every popular programming language and famously simple code snippets. For a small business or product team, Stripe's developer tools can shorten integration time dramatically. (As an example, Stripe's drop-in checkout or pre-built UI components – Stripe Elements and Checkout – let you start accepting cards with minimal coding.) Adyen's platform is also robust, but the common refrain is that Adyen is not as 'plug-and-play' for small merchants. Adyen often requires a bit more initial setup and understanding of payment flows. That said, Adyen offers comprehensive APIs and SDKs too, along with client-side components (its Drop-in UI and Components for web/mobile) to handle payment method selection and encryption. The gap in ease has narrowed over time, but Stripe's polish in developer experience and documentation remains a strong differentiator. For a startup with a lean engineering team, Stripe's 'it just works' approach can be very attractive – everything from the initial integration to handling webhooks for events is well-supported. Adyen tends to shine for merchants that need fine-grained control and are willing to invest in a more bespoke integration. Transaction Performance: Both Stripe and Adyen invest heavily in optimizing payment success rates. Adyen's advantage of direct network connections means it can sometimes get slightly better authorization rates, especially in regions where local processing matters (for instance, processing European cards with a European acquiring license to avoid cross-border inefficiencies). Stripe has countered by developing its own smart routing and 'adaptive acceptance' algorithms, and by working with card issuers. Stripe even formed an Enhanced Issuer Network program to share data with card issuers, reportedly reducing fraud and boosting authorizations by 1–2% on eligible volume. In practice, both processors are top-tier in transaction quality; large merchants often run A/B tests between providers and find both Stripe and Adyen to be high performers, with differences depending on specific geographies or banks. It's not unusual for an enterprise to use multiple PSPs in active-active mode and route traffic between Stripe, Adyen, and others to optimize costs and uptime. Both companies understand this and continually roll out improvements (for example, Stripe has machine learning to retry failed payments at optimal times and auto-update saved card details, while Adyen recently introduced an AI-powered tool called Adyen Uplift to improve payment conversion by an average 6%). On core payment processing capabilities, both Stripe and Adyen offer a full-spectrum, global solution. Stripe wins praise for ease and developer tooling; Adyen wins praise for technical robustness and global unified infrastructure. For most standard online payments use cases (accepting card payments on a website or app), either will get the job done with high standards. The differences emerge more clearly when we expand into other aspects: in-person payments, platform payments, and value-added services. Source: Stripe vs. Adyen 2024 performance and strategy highlights NerdWallet on ideal customer profiles for Adyen vs Stripe Stripe Newsroom: Amazon expanding use of Stripe (enterprise win) Stripe Enterprise documentation (custom pricing options) Adyen official pricing page (interchange++ transparency) Codelevate 2025 PSP comparison (product features & pricing details) Fintech Wrap Up deep dive (TPV and product developments in 2024) Adyen website ('One platform' omnichannel messaging) Codelevate on strengths/drawbacks of each platform FXCintel analysis on Adyen's 2023 results (North America focus) Disclaimer: Fintech Wrap Up aggregates publicly available information for informational purposes only. Portions of the content may be reproduced verbatim from the original source, and full credit is provided with a "Source: [Name]" attribution. All copyrights and trademarks remain the property of their respective owners. Fintech Wrap Up does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of the aggregated content; these are the responsibility of the original source providers. Links to the original sources may not always be included. For questions or concerns, please contact us at


Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Employee benefit linked to financial stress takes aim at traditional 401(K)s as US debt skyrockets
Americans are increasingly turning to services that are setting off alarm bells. Instead of waiting for a traditional payday, workers are increasingly using apps like DailyPay, FlexWage, and Tapcheck to get paid the same day they work — sometimes just hours after clocking out. It's called on-demand pay, and it's growing fast as millions of households face financial stress. The service lets users withdraw wages they've already earned before their scheduled payday. 'It helps a lot of employees, especially ones in school who need to pay a bill while check isn't scheduled for another week,' one Reddit user said about DailyPay. 'But don't make it a habit — when you get paid in full, your check is little.' These apps are marketed as an alternative to payday loans. There's no interest, but workers typically pay a flat fee of $2 to $5 for instant access. Next-day deposits are often free. The rise of on-demand pay comes as Americans face mounting financial pressure from nearly every direction. Total household debt surged by $167 billion in the first quarter of 2025, reaching a record $18.2 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Around $5 trillion of that debt is non-housing, consumer debt. While credit card balances dipped slightly — falling $29 billion from the previous quarter — student loan debt jumped by $16 billion. Delinquencies spiked after the end of a multi-year pause on repayment reporting. Overall, 4.3 percent of household debt is now delinquent in some way. That situation is especially dire for Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Roughly one in three consumers struggle to manage their debt, and 35 percent say they can't pay all their bills on time, according to new survey data from digital finance firm Achieve. America's labor market has shown surprising resilience - analysts were recently surprised with how many US employees got jobs last month 'When people are overwhelmed and about to miss bill payments, they often don't know what steps to take,' Brad Stroh, the firm's CEO said about the survey's findings. The agency suggested consumers should avoid quick fixes to their debt problems like cash advances, saying they 'can deepen long-term financial challenges.' 'One significant concern with on-demand pay is the potential for high associated costs,' Austin Kilgore, an analyst at the Achieve Center for Consumer Insights, told 'The real danger emerges when individuals fall into a cycle of repeatedly accessing their wages early rather than managing their existing funds. 'This can lead to a situation where a significant portion of their income is consumed by fees, essentially preventing them from having full access to their earned money.' But the problem doesn't seem to stem from American employment opportunities. Early Thursday, the Labor Department released it's June jobs report that showed shocking resilience in the jobs market. Last month, America added 147,000 jobs, up from 139,000 added in May. Hidden in today's numbers was good news for debt-burdened Americans: the average wage is still increasing. Last month, employers typically paid $36.30 an hour for work, an $0.08 hourly increase from the month before. The positive numbers were shocking to many analysts, especially given the news on Wednesday.