If there's one design area in which Apple tends to play it safe, it's colour. For a long time, the only options available for the iPhone were silver, grey or silvery-grey. Back then, the idea of a 'Cosmic Orange' iPhone was, well, cosmic.
It's no surprise that 2025's orange iPhone 17 Pro has proven a huge hit – after a strong of muted hues, it's the first ostensibly flashy 'Pro' iPhone Apple has ever made. The best iPhone for photography is also the brightest – and it's proving particularly popular in China.
According to Financial Times, Chinese Apple fans and content creators have dubbed the colour 'Hermès orange’, "for its resemblance to the French luxury brand’s signature hue".
iPhone sales have seen a 38% rise in China, reversing a years-long sales slump, and analysts are attributing it to the renewal of the 'status symbol' quality afforded by that splashy new orange.
“It sounds simple, but it’s the external obvious changes to design, which includes the introduction of a shout-out orange colour, that pulled out early upgraders,” IDC senior research director Nabila Popal told Financial Times.
Apple has been accused of stagnating from a deign perspective for a while now, with product updates looking increasingly incremental both inside and out. Indeed, the 17 line up represented its boldest aesthetic drop in years, and its success should surely be a lesson for the company – users need bold new designs to tempt them to upgrade.
And with a new MacBook Pro redesign rumoured to be arriving as soon as this year, perhaps Mac users will find themselves similarly tempted in 2026.
