The iPhone 17 Pro gets a new color option as orange fades into rose gold.

Whoa! The bright orange of the iPhone 17 Pro has turned into rose gold!

On October 18th, the topic “iPhone 17 reported to have faded body” trended on social media. Many users said that the aluminum alloy middle frame and metal back shell of their newly purchased iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max have faded to pink, while only the glass area of the middle logo remains the original orange.

You know what? This new color combination is actually quite nice.

The dark blue version has a similar issue. Some people noticed that when they ran with the phone, the color of some areas around the camera island became darker. However, this situation is not as common as the orange one.

Apple customer service responded that under normal use without being affected by high temperatures or chemical reagents, the phone's color should not change.

Apple has filled the gap in the collectibles world where there were no phones.

Get two experiences for the price of one

This feedback about color fading first came from the overseas Reddit forum.

On October 15th, user @DakAttack 316 shared his experience:

He only cleaned his phone regularly with a microfiber cloth and never exposed it to chemical reagents or extreme environments. However, his orange iPhone 17 Pro Max still turned rose gold.

As numerous similar cases emerged on both domestic and international social platforms, the pattern of color fading became clearer:

The color starts to fade from the raised camera island area on the back and then gradually spreads to the entire aluminum alloy back shell and middle frame.

The ultra-ceramic crystal glass back panel under the camera, which supports MagSafe wireless charging, does not fade, forming a sharp contrast with the metal back shell.

It's hard to say whether the color change is uniform. From the pictures shared by users, the raised camera part is mostly evenly colored, but there may be local pink patches on the phone's frame, which is quite a pain for those with OCD.

The situations vary depending on the usage scenarios.

Some people noticed the color change when using the phone without a case; others used the phone with a case all the time, did nothing unusual, and after just one or two weeks of normal use, the parts not covered by the phone case still turned pink.

Fortunately, the color after the change is not bad. Many people think the phone looks even better after the color change and matches the phone case better. The more you look at it, the more you like it.

Some people even call it the “iPhone Find X17”.

Users of the dark blue version are not so lucky.

From the pictures posted by netizens, the color of the dark blue models after the change varies in shade, forming a strong contrast with the original color. It looks like the phone has been bumped and is uneven.

So far, the silver version has not shown any color fading issues. Users who bought this color may be the biggest winners.

Behind the color change issue

To make the phone thinner and improve heat dissipation, the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max replaced the titanium middle frame of the previous generation with an integrated aviation-grade 7-series aluminum alloy.

The tech blogger “Fixed Focus Digital” quoted an engineer from Apple's supply chain and explained that this 7-series aluminum alloy has a high zinc content, and the thickness and density of the surface oxide film do not reach the ideal state. As a result, the dye does not adhere firmly in the oxidation micropores and is likely to fall off after long-term use.

This blogger also reminded that this problem cannot be avoided and suggested that everyone should be more careful and use a phone case.

In addition, external environmental factors can also accelerate color fading, such as ultraviolet rays.

One user exposed the phone to the sun for a while and clearly saw the color change. He joked, “Just expose the phone to the sun for a while, and you can get a 'rose gold' iPhone for free.”

From a professional perspective, ultraviolet rays can make the phone's coating age faster and exacerbate the oxidation of aluminum, which naturally causes the color to change.

Another factor is the erosion of hand sweat.

Aluminum itself is light gray. The phone's color is achieved by first creating an oxide film through anodizing, then dyeing it, and finally fixing the color through high temperature or distillation.

Hand sweat contains acidic substances, which will react with the phone's oxide film, causing color change, fading, and in severe cases, spots.

Repeatedly involved in the “color change scandal”, the scale of this incident is still unknown

This year, the production volume of the entire iPhone 17 series will be increased from the initially predicted 88 million units to 94 million units. The total production volume of iPhone models in 2025 is 246 million units.

JD.com data shows that as of October 18th, the entire iPhone 17 series occupied the top three spots on the sales list. The iPhone 17 Pro Max ranked first, and the iPhone 17 Pro ranked third.

It's not really surprising that some minor problems have emerged given the high sales volume, and Apple has had similar precedents.

In 2016, after 1 - 2 months of use, the back cover of the rose gold iPhone 6s was reported to have severely oxidized and was covered in spots; in 2017, the area around the charging port of the space gray iPhone X frequently wore and faded.

This time, the iPhone 17 Pro also encountered this problem just one month after its release.

It has to be said that Apple still has room for improvement in quality control.

However, so far, this problem only affects some users. The specific scope of influence is still unclear, and no evaluation agency has been able to reproduce this situation.

If your new phone is unfortunately affected, don't worry. You can try to contact Apple for after-sales testing. If it is confirmed that the damage is not caused by human factors, you will most likely be able to apply for a replacement service.

This article is from the WeChat official account “Technology Daily Push” (ID: apptoday), author: Huang Wanyi, editor: Zhou Weipeng. Republished by 36Kr with permission.