Apple still has some tricks up its sleeve for 2025

Here it comes, barreling down on us full steam ahead: 2025. Somehow we’ve already burned through a quarter of this century. It’s been a good twenty-five years for Apple, to be sure, and from all the early indications, it looks like next year will continue the trend, insofar as such things can be predicted with any certainty.

While there are plenty of rumors about what Apple might do in the next 12 months, the simple truth is that the company only has so much time and so much money. (To be fair, it is a lot of money.) Not everything can be prioritized and not everything that is talked about will actually happen.

Even among the things that happen, some will always stand out in terms of their impact on the company and its customers. As I look ahead to 2025, I think of a few that are most likely to have needle-moving consequences – even if in some cases it may take some time for the true effects to be felt.

Home, at your command

In 2024, Apple released the Vision Pro, a device that was decidedly groundbreaking but carried a price tag so high it was out of reach for all but the wealthiest Apple users—and for a company that tends to charge a premium for its products, that’s saying something.

The latest Apple product line, rumored for 2025, seems to have a completely different trend. The company is rumored to be working on a “home command center” that has been variously compared to a desktop iPad or a HomePod with a screen. Such a device would provide a central way to control smart home technology, as well as display ambient information such as the weather or news headlines.

There are lots of questions about the nature of this device. My general rule of thumb is that Apple’s products are almost always simpler and less radical than you might hope. It’s the kind of thing that, in retrospect, seems obvious given the technology the company has already released. Apple rarely reinvents the wheel, and something like the Vision Pro is the exception rather than the rule. So in this case, look at things like StandBy mode on the iPhone, tvOS or CarPlay as examples of templates for this kind of device – and don’t be surprised if the technology it uses is an offshoot of one of these.

Whatever this home command center is, it will probably still end up being a niche product like the Vision Pro, but at least it will be one that the average user might be able to afford.

Depth charge

The iPhone remains Apple’s cash crop, but while it continues to account for the largest share of the company’s revenue, Apple has struggled to figure out how to expand the line. The Pro and Pro Max have been significant hits, yes, but attempts to expand the lower end — the mini and Plus phones — have fallen more flat.

Chris Martin / Foundry

Third time’s the charm: If you can’t change the length or width, maybe the depth is where it’s at. This year, Apple reportedly intends to introduce one thinner iPhone, possibly called iPhone 17 Air or Slim.

This thinness is likely to come at a cost – in part literally. While that may be less than the $999 starting price of the Pro line, it will likely be more expensive than the base $799 iPhone — which seems to put it around the same $899 price point as the current Plus. And such a slim design may mean some trade-offs in capability, including a simpler camera and perhaps lower battery life.

As always, the big question is the story Apple intends to tell about this device. Why does it exist? Are people clamoring for a thinner iPhone? Will the trade-off be worth it? Or is the company just trying to cash in on the top by having a fancy new exterior? We will find out next autumn.

The call comes from inside the phone

One of Apple’s biggest success stories of the past decade has been the switch to building its own processors. This has allowed the company to not only elicit great performance from its products, but also great energy efficiency. By having control over the lowest level of hardware, Apple can tie it all together in a package that was simply impossible to make with third-party chips.

Willis Lai/IDG

It also speaks to a large part of Apple’s philosophy: that if something is important to your bottom line, you do it yourself.

And so 2025 will reportedly see the next step down that path as Apple brings another key technology in-house: mobile modems. The company bought Intel’s modem business way back in 2019, and rumors have swirled forever that it would incorporate its own mobile phones into its products ever since. But reports have also suggested that the engineering has proved more complicated than expected, and so continued deals with rival Qualcomm to use their modems.

However, the time may finally come in the form of a modest product: the fourth generation iPhone SE. The low-cost iPhone expected to be announced this spring could be the first with an Apple-built modem. It’s a no-brainer move, as the SE isn’t subject to nearly the same scrutiny as Apple’s flagship phone models, and likely won’t ship in the same number of units. It gives Apple time to deal with unexpected issues without necessarily compromising the biggest product launch of the year. And while its modem performance in the SE doesn’t match the iPhone 16 line, well, SE customers are probably a less performance-conscious market than those buying the latest and greatest phones.

Eventually, these modems will probably make it to other Apple products, including iPads and Apple Watches, and perhaps for the first time, Mac laptops. But it all starts with the little iPhone SE that could.

The rest

Of course, 2025 will bring the usual other assortment of Apple news. We’ll see the final tranche of previously announced Apple Intelligence features, a likely refresh of the entry-level iPad, and the debut of the M5 processor line. Recently, we’ve also seen rumors of an updated HomePod mini and a revised Apple TV.

But the biggest questions that remain for me are about the future of Apple’s software platforms. Will the impact of Europe’s Digital Markets Act continue to spread around the world and force Apple to change some of its long-standing business practices? Will we see the next step in the development of the Vision hardware, showing us Apple’s plan to push the line forward and bring it to more customers? And what will Apple focus on in its platform updates this year – will AI still be the name of the game, or will that bubble burst?

2025 is shaping up to be an exciting year for Apple and the tech industry, so hold on tight: it’s going to be a bumpy ride.