Apple has discontinued the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max following Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro launch. We covered the new iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max here.

The change means Apple is no longer treating the iPhone 17 Pro models as part of its current lineup. Both phones are gone from Apple’s US online store. The store’s old iPhone 17 Pro buying page now redirects to the general iPhone page.

That comes exactly one year after Apple announced the iPhone 17 Pro series on 9 September 2025, and just short of a full year after sales began on 19 September. When we covered the iPhone 17 launch, the iPhone 17 Pro started at $1,099 for 256GB, while the Pro Max started at $1,199.

For iPhones, “discontinued” does not mean the phone stops working or loses software support. It means Apple has ended first-party sales as the newer Pro generation takes over. Third-party retailers keep selling stock they already have.

The retirement itself is normal. Apple discontinued the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max when the iPhone 16 Pro series arrived in September 2024. It did the same to the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max when the 17 Pro models launched in September 2025.

The company generally keeps some older non-Pro iPhones around for longer, while the previous Pro models leave the current sales lineup once their replacements arrive. The result is that Apple does not sell two generations of premium Pro iPhones beside each other at overlapping prices.

This year is unusual for a different reason. Apple launched the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max without a standard iPhone 18.

New higher prices

Apple also raised US prices across the older models it kept:

The iPhone 17 moved to $899,
The iPhone 17e to $699,
The iPhone Air to $1,099 and
The iPhone 16 to $799.

Each is now $100 above its previous Apple price.

The new iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 and the 18 Pro Max at $1,299, also $100 above the launch prices of the models they replace.

That is the reverse of what Apple usually does in September. In 2024 the iPhone 15 fell from $799 to $699 when the iPhone 16 arrived. In 2025 the iPhone 16 fell from $799 to $699 when the iPhone 17 arrived. This year the iPhone 16 went back up to $799, the price it launched at two years ago, and the year-old iPhone 17 costs $100 more than it did just a day ago.

Apple did not put out a release on the rises. The new prices appeared on its online store alongside the iPhone 18 Pro listings. The reason is memory.

Tim Cook, then still CEO, said in late June that Apple could no longer absorb the rising cost of memory and storage chips, and called the shortage a hundred-year flood on memory pricing. Japanese iPhone 17 prices rose 8 to 11 percent in July, and we flagged the rumour of a US rise on 8 August.

For Kenyan buyers, the useful question is no longer whether the iPhone 17 Pro is “current”. It is how much local retailers cut prices as iPhone 18 Pro stock begins arriving.

The 17 Pro still has the A19 Pro chip, 120Hz ProMotion displays, a full three-camera system and iOS 27 support. The new iPhone 18 Pro adds the A20 Pro, a variable-aperture main camera, longer battery life and other improvements we covered in detail here.

If local 17 Pro prices fall far enough below the incoming 18 Pro models, the discontinued generation could become the better-value purchase. Buyers should compare actual Kenyan prices once the new phones arrive rather than treating Apple’s discontinuation label as a reason to avoid the older models.