Tech Desk 
Sep 10, 2025
An image of Apple iPhone 17 launched at its 'Awe Dropping' event held on September 9, 2025 in California. — Screengrab/Apple YouTube channel
Apple has launched the new iPhone 17 series, consisting of the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, at its annual “Awe Dropping” event 2025, with numerous advanced features.
Apple revealed that it’s less noticeable than a thinner profile or trick camera lenses, but the company is pointing out another upgrade in the iPhone 17 family of phones that it says is part of “the most significant upgrade to memory safety in the history of consumer operating systems.”
The company has unveiled a new security feature designed to protect users against the most sophisticated malware attacks. Dubbed Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE), it is a memory-based security system which prevents attacks by implementing a new tagging system to verify whenever an on-device system tries to connect to a memory component.
“With the introduction of the iPhone 17 lineup and iPhone Air, we’re excited to deliver MIE: the industry’s first ever, comprehensive, always-on memory-safety protection covering key attack surfaces — including the kernel and over 70 userland processes — built on the Enhanced Memory Tagging Extension (EMTE) and supported by secure typed allocators and tag confidentiality protections.”
This security system is built into the chipset and the device and does not require any user intervention. It is an always-on memory safety protection, which has been optimised to ensure the device does not struggle with performance or battery life.
In a blog post, Apple mentioned efforts by ARM with the Memory Tagging Extension (MTE) to fight memory bugs, which is supported on Google’s Pixel phones starting with the Pixel 8 series and enabled for supported apps if the user enables Advanced Protection on their iPhone.
Apple stated that its implementation goes a step further, with the ability to protect all users by default and by designing its A19 and A19 Pro chips for enhanced security, while still adding memory safety changes for older hardware that doesn’t support the new memory tagging features.
The iPhone 17 can deliver up to eight hours more battery life compared to the iPhone 16. A 10-minute charge can provide up to eight hours of usage.
iPhone 17 price and availability in Pakistan
The newly launched iPhone 17 will be available from September 19 in Pakistan, and it will cost $799 (approximately Rs224,958, exclusive of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) tax and import duties). People can pre-order the Apple iPhone 17 from September 12.
