So, you’ve been wondering if your trusty Apple Polishing Cloth ($19) is going to cut it with the shiny new iPhone 17 lineup? Well, fear not, cloth-lovers! Apple has essentially confirmed — by virtue of absolutely nothing changing about the cloth itself — that your beloved microfiber square is still perfectly equipped to wipe fingerprints off your brand-new, A19-powered, starts-at-$799 iPhone 17.

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• How to clean Apple’s $19 polishing cloth, according to Apple

That’s right. You just dropped anywhere from $799 to $1,499 on the newest iPhone, and the $19 cloth you bought years ago still works on it. No firmware update required. No compatibility patch needed. No “Polishing Cloth 2” announced at a September keynote. The cloth, in its infinite and timeless wisdom, simply does not care which generation of iPhone it is servicing. It just wipes. Humbly. Quietly. Without a press release.

Now, with the iPhone 17 series, things have gotten quite exciting in Cupertino-land. Apple launched four models this time around: the standard iPhone 17, the impossibly thin iPhone Air (just 5.6mm — thinner than the ambition of every Android manufacturer combined), the iPhone 17 Pro, and the iPhone 17 Pro Max. The Pro models come powered by the A19 Pro chip, pack three 48MP Fusion cameras, and include a new Center Stage front camera that apparently keeps you perfectly framed at all times. These are stunning devices. The kind that begs to be shown off. The kind that will, within approximately 11 minutes of being unboxed, collect a fingerprint from someone in your family who “just wanted to look at it.”

That is where the cloth comes in. Humbly. Again.

The iPhone Air, in particular, is the kind of phone that deserves to be kept pristinely clean at all times — it is so thin and so sleek that a single smudge on that 6.5-inch OLED display feels like an act of personal disrespect. The aluminum frame, the Ceramic Shield 2 glass that Apple claims offers 3x better scratch resistance than before, the whole vibe of it — it all screams “please wipe me gently with a soft non-abrasive cloth”. And Apple’s polishing cloth, bless its heart, is exactly that.

And let’s not forget the brand new iPhone 17e, which Apple just announced on March 2, 2026 — the latest budget-friendly entry to the iPhone 17 family, starting at $599 with the A19 chip, MagSafe support, and a matte finish in black, white, and a rather cheerful soft pink. Yep, even the most affordable iPhone in the lineup deserves a $19 cloth treatment. Apple’s ecosystem is thorough like that.

The cloth, as a reminder, is made from “soft, nonabrasive material” — Apple’s phrasing, not ours — and is safe for use across the entire iPhone 17 lineup, every iPad known to humanity, every MacBook produced in the last decade, and several Apple Watches going all the way back to the original Apple Watch Series 1, which at this point is practically an antique. If you have a Studio Display or a Pro Display XDR on your desk — which, combined, could cost you upwards of $6,000 without a stand — the polishing cloth is actually the only officially approved cloth that should touch those nano-texture screens. The $19 cloth is, in a bitterly funny twist, the correct companion accessory for Apple’s most premium and expensive displays.​

The compatibility list for the cloth is, at this point, longer than most grocery receipts. iPhones dating back to the iPhone 5 are on it. iPads going back to the first-generation iPad mini are on it. Every MacBook Air, every MacBook Pro, every iMac with a Retina display — all on it. iPod touch generations 5, 6, and 7 are on there, too, for the three people in the world who still own one. Even the iPod nano (7th generation) made the cut. The cloth outlasted the iPod nano as a product category and is still being sold. Let that sink in.​

So yes. Your cloth works with the iPhone 17. It works with the iPhone Air. It works with the iPhone 17 Pro. It works with the iPhone 17 Pro Max. It will probably work with whatever Apple announces next — the rumored foldable iPhone, a hypothetical Apple television, or an Apple-branded refrigerator if that ever happens. The cloth does not age. The cloth does not retire. The cloth simply is.

You can order one right now from Apple’s website or Amazon for $19 if you somehow don’t already own one, or if yours has developed enough smudges of its own that it needs the official three-step hand-wash-rinse-air-dry-for-24-hours treatment that Apple thoughtfully published as a support document. Either way, congratulations on your new iPhone 17. It is a remarkable piece of technology. And the cloth is ready for it.

Apple polishing cloth compatibility: