I believe I have found a unique insight into the iPhone 17 Pro's sales success — and it's all thanks to the London Underground
Call me tedious or overly obsessed with my job, but it is a pastime of mine while traveling along the "Tube" here in London, or on a bus, or even while waiting at the airport, to check out what phones people are using. You'd be within your rights to say that maybe I need more friends, or to get out more, or find a less dull hobby, but I find taking inventory of the phones I see around me on my daily commute is a useful way to take some kind of pulse of the smartphone market. And my most recent observation from my public transport lab is that the iPhone 17 has captured at least the people travelling on the London underground a lot more than any other previous iPhone generation.
In the approximately two or three months since the phone launched. I have seen a huge number of iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max devices used by underground passengers, in all three available colors, and in a variety of cases. It's way more than I ever saw in the previous seven years that I'd been tracking iPhone launches, and far more immediate than I've seen with any Android equivalents.
When I've seen spikes in Android phone upgrades during my commutes, it's tended to be with Google Pixels foremost, then Samsungs. But the increase in visible devices only becomes noticeable several months after launch — presumably when the decent sales promotions start. This has yet to happen with foldable phones, although if I see one out and about, nine times out of 10 it's going to be a Galaxy Z Fold or Galaxy Z Flip rather than a Motorola, Google or Chinese-based brand.
Interestingly, I have yet to see an iPhone Air in the wild (although my partner's apparently seen one while traveling around). It's a similar case with the iPhone 17, although we know from historic sales data that Pro iPhones usually get a big head start in sales compared to the base iPhone, which then catches up over the following months. I'm sure these phones are still selling in large numbers (well, maybe not the Air), but they have definitely not made their home in the bags and pockets of the London commuter crowd in the same way the Pro models have so far.
But what does it mean?
Now my observations could tell us that the iPhone 17 Pro is selling in way higher quantities than it has before. Something that is apparently true, going by analysis from various experts in tracking smartphone sales, and also from Apple's own declarations during recent shareholder meetings.
What it suggests to me is that the new design is making an impact, in either one of two ways. And the first is that the iPhone 17 Pro is simply easier to spot.
For the time that I've been tracking iPhones, the basic look has been almost identical: flat sides, a square camera array with two to three cameras, and a lot of similar colors, especially when you account for the fact that most people tend to buy the more demure-looking silvers, grays, blacks and whites, and then conceal them in a case. And while I pride myself on my ability to tell similar phone models apart from one another, I would be more likely to make a mistake in these cases and assume a new model was an older one.
However, the iPhone 17 Pro has changed that this year in a couple of ways. For one, there are only three colors available and only one (silver) I would consider similar to previous iPhone generations. The blue, and especially the orange, are distinct and eye-catching. They're easy to spot, even if you're just casually casting your eye around a tube carriage. And the phone's new look with the camera plateau makes it very obvious that this is an iPhone 17 Pro, even if it's the more generic silver colorway, or clad in a case.
It may also explain why I don't seem to have spotted quite as many standard iPhone 17s. Other than some color alterations and a small display size increase, it looks the same as the iPhone 16. It would also fit with the Android phone sales spikes I've observed — the Google Pixel's distinct camera bar design (introduced with the Pixel 6 and refined with the Pixel 9 last year) and Samsung's recent flat-backed designs seemed to be the herald of the uptick in sightings in prior years.
Are strong sales and a new look connected?
All that said, I don't think updating a phone's design more regularly is the secret solution to increasing interest in phones. These are still expensive purchases, and users still want to get value for money out of their devices, so smartphone makers would be foolish to spend the additional money required for big new designs annually. But it shows that users apparently take notice when the latest edition of their preferred brand of gadget has a new look, rather than when its main camera increases its resolution or new AI features are added.
I look forward to further testing this hypothesis of mine as we march towards the next iPhone launch. Presumably, when the iPhone 18 turns up in 2026, it'll use a similar design to the 17, making it harder to spot the latest models once again. Sure, we could just wait for more sales figures to figure out what differences Apple's latest round of changes will make to consumer interest, but those are just numbers. There's little more compelling evidence of a phone selling well than looking up and down the train car and realizing it could double up as an Apple Store showroom.
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