It has A19 Pro. A19 Pro has matmul acceleration in its GPU, the equivalent of Nvidia's Tensor cores. This would make future Macs extremely viable for local LLMs. Currently, Macs have high memory bandwidth and high VRAM capacity but low prompt processing speeds. Give it a large context and it'll take forever before the first token is generated.
If the M5 generation gets this GPU upgrade, which I don't see why not, then the era of viable local LLM inferencing is upon us.
That's the most exciting thing from this Apple's event in my opinion.
PS. I also like the idea of the ultra thin iPhone Air, the 2x better noise cancellation and live translation of Airpods 3, high blood pressure detection of the new Watch, and the bold sexy orange color of the iPhone 17 Pro. Overall, this is as good as it gets for incremental updates in Apple's ecosystem in a while.
Which is a very powerful feature for anyone who likes security or finding bugs in their code. Or other people's code. Even if you didn't really want to find them.
In the past few weeks the oxymeter feature was enabled by a firmware update on series 10. Measurements are done on the watch, results are only reported on a phone.
The color line up reminds me of the au MEDIA SKIN phones (Japanese carrier) circa 2007. Maybe it's because I had one back in the day, but I can't help but think they took some influence.
I wish they would offer the 17 pro in some lighter colors (like the new sage green for the regular 17). Not everyone wants bold, and the color selection for pro is always so limited. They don't even have white with this generation, just silver.
I've always been a bit confused about when to run models on the GPU vs the neural engine. The best I can tell, GPU is simpler to use as a developer especially when shipping a cross platform app. But an optimized neural engine model can run lower power.
With the addition of NPUs to the GPU, this story gets even more confusing...
The first SoC including Neural Engine was the A11 Bionic, used in iPhone 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X, introduced in 2017. Since then, every Apple A-series SoC has included a Neural Engine.
> If the M5 generation gets this GPU upgrade, which I don't see why not, then the era of viable local LLM inferencing is upon us.
I don't think local LLMs will ever be a thing except for very specific use cases.
Servers will always have way more compute power than edge nodes. As server power increases, people will expect more and more of the LLMs and edge node compute will stay irrelevant since their relative power will stay the same.
I will believe this when I see it. It’s totally possible that those capabilities are locked behind some private API or that there’s some weedsy hardware complication not mentioned that makes them non-viable for what we want to do with them.
IMO it's underwhelming considering folding phones have been out for many years now and we still don't have a folding iPhone. What are the PMs doing at Apple.
It's not about the thickness — this is surely Apple just flexing some of the engineering work that has gone into building a future foldable phone (which inevitably requires thinner hardware to fit two screens in the thickness of one).
So don't take this at face value, it's just a prelude to a foldable phone next year.
I'm going to add +1 to the crowd that thinks that almost no one ever said "Nice, but I wish it was thinner". Who would that be really? Surely apple made their market research before spending the R&D money creating this product. So presumably there is a market segment for it. But who is it?
The standard 17 and Pro seems very much the great product they always are. Incremental refinement. Don't like it? Get one 1-2 generations older. My iPhone 11 still feels very much good enough (which I imagine must be terrible for Apple). Perhaps their idea is that you can't just refine the 15-16-17 every year. You need to try _something_ else, or eventually people will stop paying attention?
This is total speculation on my uninformed part, but to me, the Air seems like the result of their research into foldables. The way hardware is laid out in that upper area is very reminiscent of the Flip category from other manufacturers with their a-symmetric halfs and considering Apple is a very efficiency focused company these days, letting that effort linger till display tech catches up to whatever Apple is waiting for, would feel like a waste perhaps.
Also, as long as we retain an actual Pro version that is willing to be a bit chunkier, I don't see any issue in having an Air line for casual users, maybe that will be the way mainstream devices go with future efficiency gains, similar to the MacBook Air now being "good enough" for most people. Silicon-carbon batteries will likely enable some of that pretty soon, suspect that like with GaN, the supply chain cannot handle Apple level demands yet. Remember, the original three MacBook Airs were beyond compromised too.
Just don't fall into the trap of making the Pro thinner, akin to the 2016 MacBook Pro disaster. Keep the iPhone Pros like the current MacBook Pros chunky for those who actually use these devices and we are golden in my book.
I've ever owned an iPhone and probably never will, but I very much like smaller, lighter, thinner. For a device that stays with you all day, the less cumbersome the better, no?
> My iPhone 11 still feels very much good enough (which I imagine must be terrible for Apple)
I think Apple has come to terms with the fact that people are no longer upgrading their phones every 1-2 years. They are probably happy just to keep you in the Apple ecosystem where they can sell you apps, services, accessories, other compatible apple products - and hopefully get your repeat business when you do one day feel the need to upgrade.
I’d very much prefer a phone that’s shaped like a slab (smooth back), no weird camera plateaus and no sad excuse for a battery, but something that can last days.
Agree. I don’t understand the teen of making the phones thinner but larger. I guess I’m part of the small demographics that love the mini, hope my mini 12 have a couple or more years of live in it.
Honestly I do. I want it thinner and lighter. I don’t use my phone very much so I don’t care about battery very much nor do I about any kind of specs.
Wait… yeah that’s why I won’t buy it I love my iPhone 13 mini
Can someone that is actually interested in this explain the appeal? Thin on its own I get but thin with a giant bump 100% defeats the whole point for me. Seems clear at this point there is little hope of them engineering their way into thin cameras.
Doubt most people want it as thin as possible. This is just the phone industry running out of ideas and trying to tell people what they actually need.
There's not much left to "fix" on mobile phones, and no real important features to add. Lacking that, they need something to sell the phones with, so they're going for these strange "improvements". It needs to be something that has some wow factor so they can lead with. This seems to somehow work on normal people so they'll keep doing these "improvements".
I expect in the future they'll pull this trick again, moving bits of the phone upwards towards camera, and create a second notch from half way down, where the phone will get even thinner, and they'll sell that.
The good thing about the bump is that it should make it easier to pick up the phone from a desk.
The size and weight of the phone does look tempting, but its battery life is a deal breaker for me. I'm pretty sure there's no way its built-in speakers could possibly match those in the Pro models, which is also very important to me.
I agree with you, you're still going to put it in a fat case to protect the camera.
Personally, I think thin is just "omg look at my engineering". blah blah.
I found the (expensive!) bullstrap case to be helpful - thin and slippery enough to slide out of a pocket easily, well engineered to protect the camera.
But really, I think the iphone 13 mini was the most useful/practical application of apple's engineering.
I think a mini-sized 3-camera bulge phone would be great.
I'm going to preorder one because I want a light phone and a large screen. This will be the lightest iPhone in years while also having a bigger screen than most. I dropped from the Pro Max to the Pro last year because I was tired of how much it hurt when I dropped my phone on my face.
I don't have much call for most of the camera system, and my battery life on my Pro is just fine. I have plenty of chargers typically, and for emergencies or times I know I'm going to be out I could potentially get the battery pack.
I basically never use cases on my iPhone, and at most will maybe use an ultra-thin one or some sort of structure adhered to the plateau just to make it flat across so as to not rock on a table.
Even more annoyingly, the bump is non-uniform with lens extruding even further from the entire bump. I have been annoyed by this design ever since they started with it. The last phone the design of which brought joy for me was my OnePlus 3T - thin and light. It also had the camera bump though which I would gladly sacrifice even if it meant a lower quality camera. On the other hand, I suppose they could just insert a thicker battery and make the whole phone a bit thicker but remove the bump.
Samsung galaxy s2 was a super small super thin phone, 15 years ago almost, which still had user replaceable battery, microsd, 3.5mm, gps, and everything most people would expect smartphone to have.
We then spent a decade making phones 0.2" bigger each generation as if that's an advancement - I.e. As if we couldn't have made them big in the first place (all the while removing physical features).
Then we started making them thin again, as if we couldn't have made them thin before.
It makes me think of cars - VW golf used to be a small car, then it kept growing... So they released Polo... Which kept growing so they made lupo... But each year my entire life they have ads like "6 inches bigger than before" or "10cm more legroom than competition", as if there haven't been small and large cars before.
Grumble Grumble, seen it all before, kids get off my lawn :-)
It's about the size and even more importantly the weight. I like small, light phones (I currently have the iphone 13 mini). I want something small that I can slip into my pocket and it's not this brick bouncing around as take a walk.
Although, I'm not a big phone user though, mainly use it when I'm outside of the house. In the house, I'll just use my laptop.
> Can someone that is actually interested in this explain the appeal?
It’s light and the thinness is just fun. I’m not putting a case on it. And I really don’t understand why a phone needs to sit flat on a table—if anything, the angle is a plus.
Several brands have released an ultra thin version of their phone, followed by a foldable version of their phone. One phone depth is good for just about everyone, but you can't double that up, you'd get a phone that's too bulky for modern tastes.
It stands to reason the iFold/iPaper/iSheet/whatever Apple will call it is drawing closer now that Samsung and several Chinese brands have pretty much solved the design for Apple.
The thinness makes it easier to grip around the phone laterally. Think of it like having a slightly smaller basketball, which more people would be able to palm. Easier for holding, easier for one-handed typing.
They sacrificed size for battery life, just like with the mini models, just in another dimension. Since the minis were cancelled I expect this model to undergo the same fate. Maybe it's just an experiment? Call it an A-B test.
Some people will like the way it looks, have money, and don't care as much about overall performance/utility. Much in the same way a Rolex and Timex both tell time.
They’ve shrunk the phone so much that the bump is the computer + optics, strapped to a screen and battery.
The Air and Pro are essentially the same with a different skin. It’s a big deal imo as the phone itself is practically modular. It’s pretty brilliant as they can make the computer part in China and Taiwan and probably ship that unit to various locales for different form factors.
Lighter == better, thinner == cooler. Phones are essentially identical these days anyways, and choosing one over another is based on ever-minimizing differences. Now that you can't even install third-party apps easily on Android, this is more true than ever.
I largely agree, but when we hold phones it is generally by the side without the camera. That means that this phone will feel smaller in the hand, which could be a very effective marketing gimmick to upsell people from the base iPhone.
I'm not an apple user, not into their design choices... but if i had a choice, i'd much prefer a phone as thick as the camera with a 3x the battery capacity.
I'd even go with a millimeter or two thicker to have the backplate attached by screws and the battery easily user replacable after a few years.
>"Thin on its own I get but thin with a giant bump 100% defeats the whole point for me. Seems clear at this point there is little hope of them engineering their way into thin cameras."
I have this recurring vision of what could have been if we never lost Steve before the industry went whole hog in on the camera bump fad. It goes something like this:
SCENE: Steve Jobs' office on the eve of the iPhone 7 release
"Hey Steve here's the new prototype for iPhone 7, we think you're going to love it!"
Steve picks up the phone, fumbles it around for a moment, flips it over, and runs his index finger over the camera bump
"You're fired. Now, you" points to another engineer "Get rid of the bump."
And just like that, we were saved from this nightmare. Alas, the world is shit now and no one cares about anything anymore. But I can say without question he would have never allowed it.
total phone volume is what determines how well the phone fits in your pocket. especially on women's pants with small pockets. a thin phone with a bump will fit better than a thicker phone.
the argument that the bump defeats the purpose of a thin phone is only true if you're trying to squeeze it through a narrow gap in a rigid object.
It's more about physics than hope. There's not much you can do with lenses miniaturization after a certain point (which we already reached). The result is more and more computational stuff, which Apple does somewhat gracefully, but still in a way that sets the iPhone photos apart from a camera, and not in a good way.
It weighs a lot less. My pinky hurts and 99% of my photos are selfies, so I’d rather have less mass than more camera; I’ll rent a Leica if I want truly excellent photographs. Also my purse is hella full all the time so every less millimeter of phone makes it easier to get stuff out of the pockets, get phone out of purse, etc. Also it’ll fit with less bulge into my side-thigh pockets and pull less on the waistband, which is handy for my skirts and leggings and undershorts that all that have that.
There's nowhere to go with phones than thinner if you aren't doing folding. Thinness has practical value but past a certain point, probably not very much.
Marketing will create hype and desire and the feeling of exclusiveness. Those will lead to sales.
Not every big change is an actual innovation. A lot if just engineering sales via these methods, which aren't very different than fashion, jewelry, or luxury cars.
I might get one because I'm always a bit forced to follow the curve and can't afford to look 'backwards' or 'old fashioned' to stakeholders in the workplace, people in my life, etc who's good side I need to stay on who believe in the above dynamic.
Ben Thompson (Stratechery) has been documenting for almost a decade that the biggest driver of new phone sales in China is a new form factor.
I’m sure that might be the same in other markets where an iPhone is a status symbol. It’s definitely not one in the US where 60% of phone buyers have iPhones.
it is the precipice of stupidity. making an ugly, mis-shaped phone and calling it thinner than ever. its fugly. just make the guts thinner and use the extra space for more battery. thats what everyone wants. but apple wont do it because they arent brave anymore. they arent brave enough to stick out
No problem, the next iteration is a phone without a camera. And they will tell us that no one wants a camera oh his phone. And then they sell bluetooth cameras as extra.
I have an iPhone 13 mini, just replaced the battery. If you want my money, give me an iPhone 17 mini with small width and height, I don't care about it being thinner like the Air. Also, no AI ruining the image quality of the expensive camera. I saw examples of a consumer-grade digital camera vs an iPhone 16 and the latter introduced "hotdog skin" effect and other effects that made the photos look over-processed.
Also still rocking a 13 mini. There are dozens of us! Dozens!
(Also to those who say not enough people wanted a mini phone to be worth producing: I submit the case of Prego chunky pasta sauce. Not many people want a chunky pasta sauce, but you sell a whole lot more pasta sauce in total if you sell both regular and chunky pasta sauce. Malcolm Gladwell has a TED talk about this.)
I love my iPhone 12 mini, the screen has great pixel density better than the 16 or 17 even. It is compact and light, easy to put in and out of the pocket.
The battery is not great and the peak luminosity could be better, but it still runs so well in 2025.
I've been contemplating buying a new one since the back glass is shattered and the front is scratched, the battery is also getting worse. I don't think it's viable now to get it fixed.
Unfortunately both the 12 Mini and the 13 Mini did terrible numbers sales-wise. People say they want small phones but not enough of them actually buy them when they are available. :(
I've got a 12 mini and honestly it's the perfect size. Every year I hope they bring back a proper compact flagship, but instead we get thinner, not smaller
I own a 12 mini, and I'm planning to upgrade my phone this year, it's time. If there were an iPhone 17 mini, I'd buy it, but because there isn't one, I'll probably go for the Pro to get a bigger battery. Apple knows that many folks like me would buy a cheaper mini if there were one, and not spend as much on Pro.
Reading this and replying on the 13 Mini. Love it so much but wouldn’t mind if it were a little lighter. If it stays the same forever, I think I’d still buy it. Great phone. P.S. I work at home, so battery life is not my biggest concern.
I loved the mini and bought both the 12 and 13 mini. Also bought it for my siblings. Unfortunately after its sales Apple is very unlikely to ever make a small phone again.
I had the 12 mini. Perfect size, but awful battery life due to how thin they decided to make it. Give me a mini with more than half-day battery life and I'll queue on release day.
I want an extra thick model instead, let’s call it iPhone Travel (or Ultra?). Just thick enough so the cameras are no longer sticking out. Give me an all-week battery instead of an all-day one. Slim down the power usage and give a power saver mode that actually does make a difference. Let me go on a weekend trip in nature or festival without having to carry extra hardware or having to look for public charging stations.
Personally, I really like being able to use lightweight MagSafe batteries instead of having a thicker iPhone. I used to agree with you, but the tech has gotten ridiculously good the last couple of years.
With something like https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HRY02LL/A/anker-maggo-pow..., you get a magsafe battery that doubles the life of an iPhone and can be independently recharged, and is so slim that I can put it in my pocket attached to my iPhone and not notice.
Yes. Give me the iPhone 17 Pro Ultra. It's the Pro Max, but even more battery. Heavier duty case. Like I'm put the thing in a case that makes it big and bulky already, if you give me a heavy duty enough setup that I feel safe letting it go naked, people might actually see the status symbol... instead of the dbrand sticker.
But that will rob people of those multiple extremely satisfying feelings across those one or two years, before they change the iPhone, of paying more to Apple for battery packs and then another and then another… etc. You should think of that as well.
this makes absolute sense. most of the times when my iphone 14 is literally in life support. honestly would trade off the thickness to not have to charge everyday
will someone please make this? a phone with a browser, basic camera, large battery and a UI that doesnt suck ass? a phone for adults that is affordable? i want more and more each day to get away from apple
"Impossibly thin" is right in line with Patrick McGee's "Apple in China" who argues that the main reason for Apple's designs is to keep imitators at bay by introducing manufacturing challenges that only they can meet. Indeed impossible at the time of release. One generation after the other. He estimates this gains them about 6 months of headway. Tough world.
(Yes, to be fair, there is more to this new phone than just "impossibly thin".)
This just seems like Apple's reality distortion field in full force. There are already thinner phones. Just like there were thinner laptops than Macbook Air when it was launched but Apple fans in their Apple bubble hadn't heard of them and so bought Apple's propaganda.
I say this as someone that owns 2 MacBooks Pros, an Apple TV and an iPhone.
Is anyone buying an iPhone because it's slightly thinner than other phones? I've never heard anyone say the width of the phone was their reason for picking an iPhone, or any phone for that matter.
What’s the evidence for which way causality works? Apple solving design problems they care about would inevitably involve solutions only viable at their scale. It’s hard to say whether that’s how they choose their design problems.
Their process seems pretty similar to their approach with unibody MacBooks or the original MacBook Air, both of which were introduced long before imitators were their primary competition.
That was partly true when he was writing the book or doing research, but is no longer true today. China have manage to make phone that is under 5mm, and even stated the only thing that is stopping them getting even thinner is the USB-C port.
Thinnest smartphone so far is Chinese HONOR Magic V5 folding phone at 4.1mm, though. iPhone Air is thicker by 1.5mm(1/16") at 5.6mm. Thinnest Samsung Galaxy is 5.8mm.
I sincerely hope that apple will consider making a phone with a worse camera that is flatter. As someone who rarely takes photos, and never photos of importance, the bump is just a dead weight to me. My dream phone has a body like iPhone 12 mini (which I currently use) without the protruding camera. As long as it runs all the common communication apps reliably, I'm happy. I'll pay $100 more than the standard body version even. But it doesn't seem like apple (or any notable phone brand) thinks this is worth doing.
It's the peril of being a niche customer. I can and have voted with my wallet, but it doesn't nudge the needle anyway.
> As someone who rarely takes photos, and never photos of importance
Even people who do take photos often would probably gladly sacrifice some image quality to loose that massive thing on the back of the phone. The thinness of the phone almost make it look worse as long as that camera sticks out like that; like a huge watch with a thin strap or something...
> My dream phone has a body like iPhone 12 mini (which I currently use) without the protruding camera.
Sounds similar to the iPhone 4, still my favorite of all the form factors in terms of "hand feel". It was the right thickness for me, just a bit heavy for it's size. If they refreshed it to reduce weight and extended the screen to the borders I think it would be amazing
You might want to check the 16e.
It has 16 insides (without magsafe and uwb chip), with screen from 14 and not very protruding (although still) but good camera. Its also cheaper than base model iphone.
If you take Apple's presentation at face value, most of the iPhone Air hardware is within the plateau, with the rest of the body being almost entirely battery. So it's not immediately obvious that even if they did do away with the bump, that there'd be a useable phone left over once considering the necessary reduction in battery size.
I agree with this so much. I recently upgraded to the 13 Mini and had to go back to the 12 Mini because I hated the big camera thing on the back. I actually like the 12 Mini camera more than the 13 Mini also. It felt like the 13 Mini couldn’t take close up photos worth a damn.
Very interesting that it has Thread too. I wonder if that will be a somewhat viable system in a decade. (Show me where I can buy a cheap Thread border gateway that isn't an Apple or Google voice assistant or whatever.)
That is the dumbest side profile I have ever seen. The camera bump and camera together are thicker than the rest of this thing. By its design it now demands a massive case or just won't ever sit even reasonably flat on a table. Ridiculous.
Right now I have to lean my phone on my purse to get a nice reading angle, because the lens block is lopsided and my phone wobbles around otherwise. The Air bump is still a better angle than flat, and I bet the lens doesn’t keep it from resting stably on the lower edge of the chin (?) rather than the lens edge.
The 16e is 167 grams, where the Air is 165 grams. It feels like the Air is to the 16e what the Pro is to the standard titled iPhone — the expensive version.
Which makes the marketing feel a bit incongruent with what we've gotten here. It's not noticeably more lightweight than what is currently offered, it's less featureful than the 17, but more expensive than the 17 (albeit perhaps prettier).
It seems like engineering failed to make a true superlight in its class despite narratively trying to re-evoke what we really did experience with the original MacBook Air. Instead we got an elegant up sized 16e priced like a Pro.
1. Biggest is that Apple can finally tell if people really want a thinner phone (I don’t). Maybe once they find out the answer, they can finally start using the space more productively.
2. They mentioned local LLM in passing, but this is the biggest possible selling point of the executives actually back real work on making them consumer-level easy. Have a LLM marketplace. Let users sub-train with their own ideas and local data. Enable users to privately and safely port their personal LLMs to their next Apple. Apple has the best most efficient hardware available and they have it in millions of pockets. It’s about time they use that to become the dominant phone and personal device maker. Instead of focusing on anorexic phones.
Sigh. I can't stand the camera bump. I would run not walk to the nearest Apple store with all my savings if they made a phone where the camera bump is made flush by adding thickness elsewhere to match, filled with extra battery. Thing would last for weeks. Ah well back to reality.
It's thinner, but at 165 grams it's not appreciably lighter than a regular-sized iPhone (the 16e in particular at 167 grams). People generally want a more lightweight phone more than they want a thinner phone. So it's only for people who also want a larger-than-regular iPhone screen.
Also, It's a bummer that they didn't launch something for the mini series. I prefer smaller screens that fit into my pocket, I don't care about thinness. 13-mini will be the last iPhone I can upgrade to in a few years, after that I'll have to look into other phones
Another thing that stuck out, what's the point with having such a thin phone, yet the camera system points out? I would much prefer a complete flat backside
Interesting. So apart of camera and battery life, the upgrade from iphone 12 mini to iphone 17 is unimpressive and for someone like me who likes smaller sized phones and don't care about refresh rate (my goal is to decrease my screen time rather then increase), its actually a downgrade.
When a phone costs north of 1000USD something is terribly wrong. 99% of "modern" phone use is basically (doom) scrolling, browsing the web, using core apps (like maps) for directions, taking pictures and finally communicating with whatsapp and making the odd/rare old school phone call.
This should not require spending 1000-1500USD on a phone.
Im doing all of the above with a iPhone SE for what i paid like 300-350USD for.
Second hand phones are even cheaper, just change the battery and you are good to go.
You can hate Apple for it, but the phone costs $1000+ because people will buy it. Apple has been proven right year after year since 2017 (iPhone X)
You can still do everything you mentioned on a $150 phone, which exists in parts of the world. If anything, one could complain that the $150 phone still takes pictures worse than an iPhone 5
Okay, if your use case doesn’t require it, then don’t buy it…? You aren’t the only person in the world and some people might actually make use of this phone’s features(?)
Incredible lift-to-weight ratio is going to contribute to epic hang times from this thing while the camera bump provides a center of gravity for it to rotate around for predictable flight paths.
5.6 mm? Pah! The Moto Z beat them by .4 mm almost 10 years ago: https://www.androidheadlines.com/2025/05/the-moto-z-was-so-a... And, more importantly, the Moto Z had a reason for being so thin: the ability to add "mods" that attached to the back of the phone magnetically.
What I don't like about iPhones in terms of practicality is that the corner camera makes it impossible to lay them on a table without wobbling. Google does a better job with its Pixel phones.
The unfortunate part is that you can make anything better in a single parameter, but Apple has effectively no competitors. People who buy Apple will continue to buy Apple.
For people to switch, the competition has to come out with something that is visibly and unbeatably better than what Apple has.
I know many people in developing countries who'd rather have a 5 year old iPhone than a new android.
I just want them to release a new iteration of 13 Mini at some point. I don't want a larger phone, I don't care about how thin it is with a massive extruding camera bump; give me an actual handheld phone.
For now my 13 Mini works perfectly fine so I'm in no rush, but when the time comes, I'm going going to buy a massive device that I can't comfortable use with a single hand.
It's wild to see the HN crowd, bleeding-edge technologists, regularly bring up "lying flat on a table" as a critical feature for a supercomputer inside a camera that fits in your pocket.
Somebody (many somebodies?) is rolling over in his grave.
"a supercomputer inside a camera that fits in your pocket" stopped being a novelty 15 years ago. We call it just "phone" now!
"lying flat on a table" is a critical feature for a device that on a daily basis lays on the table.
If it clanks and thuds every time you press it (and pressing it is the only way to use it) while lying on the table, then it is bad design that should be addressed.
It’s clear that super thinness is a technology imperative necessary to get Foldable IPhones. In order to fold, you first must solve thinness (since the final decide will be 2x once folded).
Apple focusing on thinness is proof to me a foldable phone is next.
Yes; the mini phones never sold very well, yet there are always commenters that ask for it. There are no small phones on the market, even the asus zenphone - which used to be the best compact android - is just a big phone now.
No kidding. I just want one that I can use one handed again. I’m on the IPhone SE, have hands that can play an octave + 2 additional keys on a piano, and I can’t reach the whole screen with a single hand.
We're in the minority. The iPhone Minis did not sell well. I think women especially do not want a small phone because they carry it in a purse anyway (and slap a case on it with an extra handle to make it easier to hold).
I recently doubled the thickness of my iPhone SE by adding an external battery. Fits in my jeans pocket fine along with several other things in the same pocket. If they can get it that thin, why don't they just add more battery and take us back to the time when we could run phones for weeks between charges.
[edit] I'll answer my own question. Nobody is going to replace an iPhone because it drops from 21 days battery to 14 days battery, but they probably will replace an iPhone that drops from 21 hours battery to 14 hours.
I like the size of a regular iPhone. What I really want is a lighter phone.
Unfortunately, compared to the iPhone 17, the Air is about 30% thinner, with worse battery life, camera, etc, but only around 7% lighter. I was expecting at least 20% lighter if it's called "Air".
You have to sacrifice screen size to shrink the other dimensions, and they already have smaller screen iPhones. It seems most people care more about big screens than size in that dimension
I’ve been a little concerned that the (non-transparent) back is “protected” by glass. I understand that Marketing has to work with what they’re given, but that’s a bit much.
I got the Samsung 25 Edge and did move from a the regular sized phone to "plus" without the constraints and weight that usually follows. I can reach the screen edges that I can't on the same size plus version. Added bonus that i don't get a strain in my pinky from the weight and its still very pocketable. So I'm sold on thinner phones except the wobble from hell when its laying on the table.
It’s because they’re working on a foldable phone. And to make that work you need to phone half as thin first. This is not because they think people want thinner phones. It’s because they think people will want bigger screens and this will get them there.
Every time a new iPhone comes up people on hacker news pine for a new mini, which I understand. But everytime someone has to bring back up that the 12 and 13 minis were the worst selling sku two gens in a row, with at one point the 13 mini only attributing to 3% of 13 sales [1].
I'm sorry, but the market has spoken. And there's Android phones in that form factor if you really want it.
If you’ve been following the rumour mill and also understand Tim “zero waste” Cook’s MO of reusing parts in multiple models, this whole thing makes a lot more sense when you realise they’re going to release a folding iPhone next year, and it’ll be the thickness of two Airs.
(side note) And the folding phone will be a "Apple First".
I wonder if they still still have a stupid camera notch on the device. They is no point (to me) have a thin phone even you end up having a 5mm notch the size of your phone
“Thinnest” should be measured by the thickest slice for a given dimension.
I have an iPhone 11 which also has a camera bump and the experience of typing while the phone is on a flat surface is laughably annoying. For a company that prides itself on design aesthetics, it is honestly an embarrassing miss.
Genuinely curious: why do you often find yourself typing on the phone resting on a flat surface? I can’t think of a single time where that’s been the best way to handle my device.
Just do not understand the market for this one. The current size of phones is a solved problem. Nobody is asking for these things to be thinner. Most people use cases and are happy to add some thickness for battery life. Besides, the camera "plateau" makes it all futile.
Since they aren't going to offer the smaller profile it seems that at least some segment of people want, and they don't have any new ideas to innovate on, they have to release something in order to maintain "growth" - which we all know must happen on schedule.
i hardly use my phone. it mostly sits in my hip pack. i'm extremely interested in the Air. the thinness means it takes up less space in there, which is very much appreciated. since they won't make another mini, this is the next best alternative. i'm also thrilled about having all-Apple silicon down to the cellular radios. more power-efficient and faster updates when improvements to cellular capabilities come out. very exciting.
the small battery won't affect me much. web browsing is the most demanding workload on my phone, which is not a problem on this a19 soc unlike the 13 mini whose soc struggles to keep up. i also charge my phone every night before i go to sleep and these phones do a great job at not draining overnight.
I'm actually curious about this one. Something that feels more seamless in my pocket, however like you mentioned, it would require for me to not use a case, which is something I might do.
I've been hoping for Apple to return to "thin" and it's nice that they're trying. I don't know whether I would buy this, but my current iPhone 14 Pro feels like a brick — thick stainless steel
When I go for a run, it's uncomfortable to have in a pocket depending on what running clothes I am wearing. The heaviness makes it feel far more likely to break all the times I have dropped it (and I have dropped it many times, without a case)
Wow, a phone with a battery that's so bad, they're selling an extra one to strap to the back of it, on launch day... The most innovative thing that Apple has done recently is figuring out how to have their CEO deliver a gift wrapped gold bar to the president. [1]
If you check the actual specs, the Air’s battery life is the same 27 hours as the 16Pro. That’s pretty good for such a thin device. Obviously 27 hours is an optimistic estimate but to match the 16Pro means that the Air battery isn’t actually bad.
They likely offer the battery pack to make people feel more comfortable who don’t ready the specs but just make an assumption based on looks.
I'm also curious who the market is for a thinner phone. I imagine pockets on some clothes women commonly wear might work better with a thinner phone, but those pockets are almost always too small in other dimensions to actually hold the phone
So there's one feature the Air is missing according to a deep dive of the Compare sheet (https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/): The Air does not support mmWave cellular connectivity, while the other models (and previous models going back awhile) do support it.
That is...weird? Why would the Air's design prevent that?
The mmWave functionality requires a glass section on the frame as it can't pass through metals. They've redesigned this on the 17 Pro[1], but likely didn't find a way to integrate into the Air's design.
When Camera Control was introduced on iPhone 16, Apple moved the 5G mmWave antenna to pass through the back glass of the iPhone, that way it was no longer something you needed to see.
Now though, with iPhone 17 Pro – that can’t work. The iPhone is now largely made of aluminum, requiring Apple to revert to an old design technique: a glass cutout for 5G mmWave passthrough
I'd be paranoid all the time about breaking it by accidentally sitting on it. Thinner just means it won't have as much strength to resist being bent into an ass-shaped curve, right?
i'm sure most people reacted like you in focus groups. I dont know how many times they said "its our most durable phone" and "its so strong" etc. Got to be a way to directly counter this first impression.
This reminds me of Nokia's glory days around the turn of the millennium, when the mobile phone's essential functionality was well established and they excelled at packaging the same thing into ever-smaller cases made of ever-fancier metals.
I actually sold my Nakamichi cassette deck to afford the NOKIA Communicator back then. The OS was problematic and couldn’t deliver the functionality that I expected. I ended up switching to a Palm or Handspring device, can't remember which, and stuck with a Nokia monochrome phone until the iPhone came along and changed everything.
Can't be just me who feels underwhelmed by the announcements yesterday? I can't imagine why they prioritise making thinner iPhones at the expense of longer battery life.
Around 2000-2005 there was a race for the smallest phone with ludicrously small displays. I believe Nokia was kind of leading and “winning” the race. Then blackberry and iPhone reversed trajectory and suddenly bigger was better, and Nokia died out.
I think we are on the same path here, thinner is not what I want. I want a powerhouse that can run AI for at least 48 hours on the worst conditions, a week at least in an ideal scenario.
My memory is from around 1998-1999 when I did some research to buy my first phone. From memory, I think that at that point Ericsson was winning that race in the more affordable end of the market, with models that I remember being smaller than Nokia models from the same time, such as:
In the end I realised that size was not the most important factor for me so instead I got a Motorola 8700 [1] which I didn't enjoy using, then sold it shortly after to get a Nokia 5110 [2] which I liked very much.
I view my phone primarily as something I'm obligated to carry on myself at all times to function in modern society. The easier it is to carry the better. When I need to upgrade my phone, I'll always choose the smallest iPhone by weight.
Right, thinness doesn't help with anything. I want smaller width and height (i.e., a iPhone 17 mini) so that the phone will fit better in my jeans pocket.
The most annoying thing about handling my 12 Pro Max one-handed is the weight, with thickness being 2nd, and screen size being a distant 3rd.
I went from someone who had to have the latest phone on pre-order to someone who doesn't bother: this is the first time I'm considering a new phone release in years. I suspect many other people are in the same boat.
I'm just not sure if I'll miss 3 cameras too much.
It's a UI problem not an hardware one imo. Pretty much when iPhone came out UI research flattened and everything seems so standardized now, I only see gimmick stuff like liquid glass. For example, I don't see why a submit button cannot float near the thumb on the right or left side of the bottom of the device(could predict by checking device orientation)
When Samsung came out with its ultra-thin phone earlier this year, reviewers said you can't really tell from pictures but it really does feel different in-hand, and is substantially lighter. This one is slightly thinner than Samsung's
Not enough for me to upgrade, but I would consider this one if I were buying this year
The rumors are also strong for a folding iPhone next year, in which case this may just be them using the same thinness work they already had to do for that. A foldable would prompt me to upgrade
Every time I read an apple press release, I immediately bounce off because of the purposeful omission of the definite article when referring to their products; like "iPhone Air features ..." instead of "The iPhone Air features ...".
It's irrational, but it's like an uncanny valley via text for me.
I've bought an iPhone 16 this year so it will be at least 4 years before I start thinking about a new one. Hopefully we'll have some sci-fi tech until then.
I was hoping for an Apple TV that can do AV1 decoding.
It is quite telling when they boast about the battery life of the other models, but the Air is just "All day battery life", and then immediately announce their magsafe power bank 20 seconds later in the broadcast!
If you're going to do a phone-width camera bump, at least make it flat so I can put my phone down without it wobbling. Apple's bump on a bump is the worst of both worlds.
A19 uses the 3nm process and its benchmarks look similiar to the A18. My two cents I would hold off to next version of the air/pro with the 2nm process and the A20 series chips.
They did increase the RAM for the iPhone17 by 50% (8GB -> 12GB [sorry, there was no RAM bump, I was looking at the iPhone17 and iPhone17 Pro page and confused the 17Pro RAM for the 17 RAM amount]) and the 128GB storage option is gone, so the 256GB option is the minimum now, for the same price as the initial iPhone16.
Every time I hear "people/customers want it" I answer that I don't want it and immediately hear in response "but you are not a human/customer". I'm confused... I stopped asking.
It's late but I spent way too long looking at the top image wondering what the weird phone angles were on the left and right until I realised it said AIR
Same! Though it was some liquid glass distortion of the phone or something.
And then I stared at the line about "remarkable all‑day battery life" and wondered what is so remarkable about that. Anyway... "The new iPhone Air MagSafe Battery has a thin and light design that magnetically attaches to the back of iPhone Air to extend battery life during busier days." So you can always turn it into a normal thickness phone with normal battery life it seems.
AppleCare+ is really good IMO if you're interested in caseless. I can get my screen or back replaced same day for as little as $29. On my iPhone 17 I've broken the screen twice and gotten repairs done same day.
iPhones last killer feature was usbc. These are all good and appreciated upgrades for someone with no phone, but my wallet is happy none of it is really that interesting and enough to warrant an upgrade. Right now I don’t know what they could do to get me to want to. Folding? Even more zoom? Even more battery? Return of the headphone jack???? I won’t lie, a headphone jack might…
Can I get regular thickness but twice the battery life instead? "All day battery life" is the bare minimum dressed up as a feature - I get at least two out of my cheap android.
Unless you can deliver multi-day battery, it's useless to provide anything more than all day battery. If the battery can only last 1.5 days for example, then the user is stuck trying to find a charge in the middle of the day. All day battery means they just need to charge overnight (which most users already do).
So basically: thinner, shinier, faster. Itэs impressive from an engineering standpoint but at what point does thinness stop being a feature and start being a liability? I feel like we’ve been here before with bendgate.
I thought this. I've had a previous phine with bending issues and I'd personally stay well clear of anything this thin.
I notice the release claims "our most durable iphone ever" - curious if this is actually true and whether there's any design to stop the risk of bending.
> Google Cloud revealed Tuesday it has lined up about $58 billion in new revenue over the next two years as it vies to become a more central component of the tech giant's future.
> The company said during its July earnings that the cloud division had surpassed a $50 billion annual revenue run rate. Google Cloud's backlog of non-recognized sales contracts is growing even faster than its revenue, unit chief Thomas Kurian told investors at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology conference.
I don't feel like I need a thin phone. I need a smartphone which can last for a week after a single charge. From what I understand, the energy density in modern battery processes is enough to pack 100 Wh battery into a phone, but for some reason we are stuck with 20 Wh for years.
I believe the counterargument here is that we've gotten used to phones being relatively thin, and people have learned to charge their phones every night anyway. Something about stated vs. true desires, just like with the Minis where people said they wanted smaller phones but then nobody bought them. I believe it might be a similar thing where people say they want thicker phones with big batteries but they won't actually buy them when they realize they will be noticeably thicker and heavier.
This. Absolutely this. Presumably the foldable flips back up and extends to just beneath the camera bump, hence most of the phone is effectively double the thinnest part of the iPhone air.
I understand the market "has spoken" but I feel like I'm on crazy pills when I put a ruler across my iPhone 13 mini and look at where the 6.5" mark is. No other dimension is relevant to me until we get this one under control.
Not an iPhone nor Apple user, but I feel like we're regressing on battery life. My old Moto G used to last a full week with single charge (yes, I'm a very light user: no social media, games etc.). My newer Google Pixel's battery, with its larger capacity, with the same usage pattern, lasts for 2 days if I'm lucky. That is to say, the normalized idling time for newer phones have grown significantly shorter.
Now, this Apple ad appears to be boasting as if battery that lasts single day is a generous offering. Perhaps it's adjusted for a heavy user. Still, I don't get the impression that we aren't getting actual improvements on battery life.
I don't really see the point of making phones so thin when the camera sticks out as much as much as the phone is thick. I would rather have a flat phone that is thicker
Edit: forgot which thread I’m on, yes the air looks much more like Pixel.
Copying pixel would have been great. They copied AND made it worse.
I wouldn’t in a million years buy a pixel, but their team deserves credit for making really beautiful hardware. IMO better than iPhone 16 Pro and MUCH better than iPhone 17 Pro.
I get the thinness. My current iPhone is perfectly thin enough on its own, but when you add a case… yeah, the whole package could stand to be thinner. Not sure if that is achieved given the bump.
I feel like this is more of a tech demo than a product. It is impressive engineering, for sure, but you can pay $100 more for the Pro and get significantly more features and battery life.
> you can pay $100 more for the Pro and get significantly more features and battery life
Segmentation. More features aren't material if you don't use them. And plenty of people (not me) habitually charge their phones to the extent that carrying around extra battery just in case is sort of like having a 400-mile EV for grocery runs.
Phones are the main computing device for young people and hosted LLMs are eating the world right now. Not everyone will find a problem with this, but I am hoping for practical local LLMs sooner than later, and for maximum impact, they should also be able to run on phones. This amount of computing power in a phone is what could help make that happen.
This announcement contains so many fake marketing words I can't help but read it in DJT's voice...
Add Tim Apple's present and yeah, cool tech, not interested.
Recently got a iphone 16 pro to my mom. First thing i reacted on when opening the package was. Damm that is a thick phone. Compared to my S25 and older android phones i have the iphone 16 feel old and clunky, like from another era.
I just can't imagine anyone wanting this? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but do people really want a thinner phone? I love my 16 Pro and plan to get the 17 Pro.
Definitely feel like thicker and longer battery is better. Heavier feels nice.
Saw another comment that said this will give Apple the opportunity to learn if people really want a thinner iPhone. I hope they learn that people don't. Curious to find out the answer.
Don't see much improvements that really matter to a common phone user. Battery, maybe?
Reminds me of Windows versions that came after Windows 7. Why don't people just stop doing new versions after the product has reached its saturation point?
The thinness of the letters in the title really accentuate the camera bump. For me it makes it looks like it's called APR and really draws attention to a design feature I dislike, having said that I know that some people find camera bumps a positive feature.
We will have Silicon Carbon battery that has 2x energy density of normal lithium battery shipping on Smartphone later this year. Apple is very slow in new battery technology adoption, but one could imagine in a few years time this iPhone Air will have double the battery life.
Ditto. This adds 10.5mm of width, but shaves 4mm of depth (2mm on each side, as measured when holding in one hand). So the net increase is only 6mm. I won't be pre-ordering one of these, since I want to feel it in-store prior to purchasing.
The weight is also significantly (in percentage terms) greater.
I wish they could just make a phone that has 3 or 4 day battery life. I never understood this obsession with thickness, even the normal iPhone is too thin to properly hold without a case.
I completely agree with this; in practice I have to charge my iPhone in the daytime to make it through the day (probably not when it was new). It would be great
to have it go multi day for the days I don’t/cant do an overnight charge.
I've yet to notice a substantive difference between my current Moto g 5g, which cost ~150 USD and my previous phone, a Pixel 5a which cost ~450 USD. I balked at the price of the pixel at the time, but figured that's just the price of admission these days. It is now useless since the screen/mobo failed soon after I switched. After it was obsoleted, I just opted for the cheap Moto and will probably never spend more than 200 USD on a phone again.
If you're on here, you probably work in tech, and if you work in tech, you're probably pretty affluent, which means you don't need to signal that you're affluent.
They introduced N1 network chip. I noticed "thread" technology along with wifi and bluetooth. Tbh, it's first time I heard of this tech. Could anyone enlighten me what this "thread" wireless technology is and its impact?
This is an interesting move. Extend the moat. At the same time I'm considering hard wiring a powerbank to my phone so it will have a month of stand-by time.
If this thinnest iphone air has 27 hours of video playback, why does the regular iphone 17, which looks twice as thick only has 30 hours? At this point, I just want long battery life. Like an "all-week" battery life would be a nice start.
> iPhone Air features an eSIM-only design that saves space internally, helping enable the unbelievably light and thin form factor.
I've only ever had phones with at least one (regular/physical) eSIM, and a 'slot' for an eSIM for travel.
What are the pros/cons of only eSIMs?
Edit: I'm not questioning eSIMs, which I know can be handy: my iPhone SE3 is physical+eSIM. I'm curious about no physical SIM. If you can support 1-eSIM+physical is it a big deal to go to >1-eSIM+physical?
I have an only esim since the iPhone 11 was released.
Pros:
- Super easy to get esims while traveling. e.g. in Mexico i downloaded an app while still in the airport and paid $5 with apple pay and instantly activated a 1 month esim.
- You can have multiple esimss. With physical sims you are limited to the physical number of sim slots on your phone, usually 1 or at most 2. With esim there is no such restriction.
- More secure. esims can't be cloned (e.g. sim swapping attack) or simply removed from a stolen phone like physical sims.
Cons:
- If you get a new phone, you cant just pop your physical sim in. You need to go through your provider to transfer, which requires calling them and verifying your identity.
I actually dont see this as a con really, I see this as a security benefit. Since I only get a new phone every 3-4 years, the 20 min on the phone it takes to transfer is not a significant burden.
When they first introduced eSIM only on the 13 iirc, not every country had that rolled out especially with old telcos in South America so if you travelled there for work or family you were completely shut out and it means buying a burner. I am not sure how that has progressed in the past 4 years but hopefully more telcos adopt it. The downside is no real portability of cheap plans using regular sim cards.
SIM cards are huge. Even the smallest form factor is a pretty large component. It has to be accessible from the exterior of the device and often has an ejection method of some kind. Getting rid of it is huge from a form factor standpoint.
I am sure there are downsides to eSIM but particularly for the average consumer who gets a SIM in their new phone and never changes it... there is probably zero difference.
I asked my provider to issue a new e-sim that I could use in another phone, but it asked me to verify my id by sending me a text message I couldn't receive because I didn't have a phone.
I couldn't buy a new phone without a new sim, because I had forgotten the pin of the card I needed to use, and the pin was visible on a website that was protected with 2FA.
So I bought a physical sim card from my provider shop (using my last physical 10 euros), then went to a used iphone reseller, who let me setup the phone before paying, so that I could use the phone to actually pay for it.
eSIM is essentially a client-server protocol for provisioning secrets into an embedded SIM (whether discrete chip soldered on the mainboard or emulated by the modem).
The QR code you get when you purchase an eSIM is merely an access token to initiate the provisioning process. Some carriers may make these single-use, or attach extra restrictions such as fees if you want to get a new one, or restrictions they themselves don't know about like that you must be on an IP from your carrier's home country to reach the provisioning server (good luck debugging that if you're not already aware of it - and no, on-device VPNs won't save you as the OS will not use your VPN for this traffic).
Even the mechanism that allows you to move an eSIM from one iPhone to another requires carrier involvement, which they have to support (internally I don't believe it moves anything, instead merely requesting a new SM-DP code in the background and sending that to the new phone). It doesn't work for all carriers.
Oh and you already need to have some existing IP connection to provision the eSIM in the first place, so first-time provisioning is tricky. I'm sure there is a workaround for it, but again carrier support varies.
TLDR: it allows the carrier to interfere when provisioning or moving the eSIM which carriers can and do take advantage to make the process more costly/painful and discourage easily using alternative carriers.
I think the Air makes a lot more sense through the lens of a foldable iPhone.
Even for Apple, there are a significant amount of challenges in building a best-in-class foldable. Supply chain, manufacturing, hardware design, software. Apple is well known for planning ahead; breaking down problems by tackling some in an Air model first seems in line with how they operate.
The price difference really drives this home. It’s only $100 difference between a Pro and an Air. By the time you buy the perhaps-essential battery pack it’s the same price.
I don’t expect this model to continue more than a year or two, it’s a niche option only there to set the stage for a foldable that will take its place.
As much as I want this to succeed because Apple makes great products, I don't know who asked for it. People have voted unanimously with their wallets that bigger screens with longer battery life is what they want. The trend to thin down phones stopped around iPhone 8 or so, when the big screen was introduced. Since then we have seen many cycles where the phones got bulkier with larger batteries and screens. No one complained.
I have Samsung S25 Edge which is essentially same thickness (5.8mm) the biggest difference is weight, phone feels really light compared to my old phone.
The most annoying thing on the phone is wobbling when it is on flat surface thanks to lenses sticking out.
Battery life is alright. I can get 2-3 days of life from it with light use. If I am using it a little bit more, then it is barely one day of battery life.
For this they could engineer a good plastic but it wouldn't sell because it wouldn't feel "premium" enough. So instead, we get nonsense like that.
And it suits them well because the thing is that much more likely to break so they get more chances to have the customer pay for repair or phone change.
Win-Win for them, lose-lose for the customer, basically everything Apple is about currently.
Long time apple fanboy. I've watched most of these unveilings for the past 20 years. The new phones are impressive. But it was all speeds and feeds. The examples felt so wrong. The women dancing while on the phone. The guy running with while recording. The person needing translation to buy roses? None of those feel grounded in reality. It's like they are building tech for made up in corporate conference room use cases.
Live translation u/i feels like a significant upgrade for that specific product, especially if you are in a dense area with different types of speakers. It feels like a way better MVP than Meta Glasses that are only meant to do troll videos on tiktok or youtube. The examples they trotted out feel ridiculous but that's because they have been approved by their internal systems.
> It's like they are building tech for made up in corporate conference room use cases.
Totally felt the same during the live-translation demo, when these two casual business folks were talking about "the client will love the new strategy". Dystopian corporate gibberish.
Steel is too heavy. As they pointed out aluminum is much better at dissipating heat than titanium. Shooting video has always heated phones up. A lot of the video features were aimed directly at actual professional video work so I’m not surprised if preventing throttling was a key goal. Game performance will come along for the ride as well.
They also said that this was the first unibody iPhone. Can titanium be made the same way? The unibody MacBooks are really nice though I’m not sure if the same rigidity issues are at play in such small devices.
They’re running out of ways to innovate across all of their product lines. Introducing yet another product size is the easiest way for them to make it look like the iPhone is still innovating. I’m sure there will eventually be an Apple Watch Air as well as iPad Pro Max/Ultra too.
I'm concerned about HN database storage capacity, so here's a simple way to think about this. If you're interested, consider buying it. If it's not for you, no need to argue a whole lot. Plenty of other topics worthy of discussion. XD
They really know how to get your consumer juices flowing
Aside from Macs for development I've never been an iPhone person but I'm seeing this like ooh. But no I'm good with my $160 motorolla android phone, no shade against this phone, good enough for my needs.
I remember Matt Honan's ridiculou8s write-up in Wired magazine when he was Editor, complaining about getting in a taxi with the iPhone 6 in his back pocket and it bending. I'm sure we will see more of that.
Really?! It’s 2025 and this is what they saw as important. We need repairable tech not this peanut butter and jelly nonsense that’ll be in the trash heap literal months from now. Feels like we’re back to the old Performa, Centris and Quadra era of rolling our more and more barely differentiated products u til folks loose track of what to buy. Have you been in an Apple Store recently, it’s starting to feel pretty cluttered.
Another data point, Googles own phone ad right now is literally along the lines of ‘feel like your existing phone never changes’, clearly a dig at Apple’s product atrophy.
I'm always impressed how Apple can name so many products with so few words. Recycling Mac[Book] / Pad / Pod, Air, Pro, and 'i' (hardly even a word) gives you basically their whole product lineup. iPad Pro, MacBook Air, AirPods, iPhone Air, iMac Pro. AirTag must be the only one that has a unique word in it.
I don't get the effort of reaching that thickness and then bumping that monster at the top. It will unbalance the phone for sure. I mean there must be a consumer base that would buy an ultra light smartphone without the back camera so to make it consistently thin? I'd buy it
Ad has nothing for me. I want to know more about it's satellite reception, it's physical limits (actual specifications with units too much to ask?), it's hardware security improvements, how many GB of storage, and the final cost.
This might be an unpopular opinion but does anyone else think that phones are now targeted towards teenagers and young adults and not the general crowd anymore ? I feel Apple has completely made their phones a social tool and not a technology innovation product. Camera, colors and the ability to distinguish your phone from others in selfies (another social feature) and in public is what it seems to be about. Gaming on the phone is another aspect. The phones look different each year (on purpose) and they are increasingly targeted towards young adults who can spend 1000$ of their savings all year towards just looking cool on social media with better pictures and a social profile. I noticed this transition around iPhone X era where design language lost meaning as long as they could compete in the social media world. I feel Instagram and TikTok should thank apple for becoming more social.
I really like the 15 camera I have and feels really good for a casual photo person. I feel that the 16e is more than enough for 99% of those not into social media. Like the phone without social media is just keeping in touch with close friends and family and occasionally taking pictures and making payments. And once in a while a few apps that help you track something like maps or health apps.
The 16e feels like a really enough phone if you don't want to get into the rat race.
Here’s an actual hot take compared to the sentiment in this discussion: this will be the best selling iPhone ever.
Specs wise sure, I’d also love a bigger battery than it being thin*. But the iPhone has been an unbelievable fashion statement, and this insanely sexy iPhone will be the strongest yet.
I’m pretty sure when it comes out, people will actually hold it in their hands and the sentiment will turn. Not talking to you tech nerds, but for the other 99% of the world.
I remember this take when the iPhone X came out, which incidentally also felt like the first year (here in the US) where Apple was truly detested, publicly. Instagram and Twitter were chock-full of memes like "999x Kinder Chocolate or 1x iPhone X?" and the notch/design overhaul met a pretty lukewarm reception. The agony of yearly upgrades really set in, then.
It's not impossible for this to take off, but I won't hold my breath. It's a small gamble that could go either way.
I don't need a thinner phone. I need a phone that can use a physical SIM card, has a physical keyboard (something like the N900), and a 3.5mm headphone jack... I'll just skip on that overpriced piece of junk.
The first thing I do after opening this page (or any other phone announcement) on Hacker News is press cmd+f and search for "headphone". Turns out not many people care about this anymore.
“A new titanium USB-C port is 3D-printed to be thinner and stronger, fitting into the slim design while using 33 percent less material than a conventional forging process.”
I have the largest version of the iPhone 16 and it isn't that big. When I first upgraded the size difference was very noticeable, but that faded pretty quickly. It is annoying that it fits into my front pocket when turned diagonally.
That's the iPhone I was waiting for. I love mu iPhone 14 pro but despise its heft. My previous iPhone was iPhone 6s and when I see it in the drawer and take it in my hand I feel nostalgic for that age when the phone wasn't so in your face with the wight and the tick feel in my pocket.
There's a small potential for enthusiasts to potentially make an aftermarket shell that sits flush and uses the space for an additional battery. Won't be cost-effective nor mass market but people have done crazier things (like add USB-C support to Lightning phones) before.
It really does feel like there is a long term strategy with miniaturization and functional integration.
The power of a MacBook Pro in the bump of a phone, the rest is just battery, screen, antennas and heat dissipation. What other form factors are they working towards?
Software is eating hardware. I mean, who needs a phone or a laptop if they can be virtualized from a headset? Maybe the phone in the pocket becomes just a folding keyboard + battery combo.
Design-wise it's iPhone 4 for me. It still feels great to hold. I wish the Pro models went back to this all-flat design, and let the other models worry about thinness.
My old 13 pro is quite thin and uncomfortable to hold in hand without a case. Why would someone push so hard for a thinner phone? Boosting about extra battery if SIM slot is removed, while doing insane over-engineering to shave a few millimeters is quite a tell.
I know Apple is super successful and will have another great set of quarters, but this is quite disappointing.
> Why would someone push so hard for a thinner phone?
They have to "inovate" somewhere. The suckers won't pay hundreds of dollars for the same crap over and over again. They tried to "inovate" the GUI, it was a disaster. Now they turned to HW.
I have the 13 pro. I personally find it quite heavy (quite a thwack when you drop it) or just tension when you wear shorts for example. That said, I have zero interest in this phone.
Once you start rocking case accessories, profile of phones can definitely get thinner, i.e. phone loops, those suction cups. I'm fine with going thinner with the trend and I think we're going to get some pretty slick phone cases/accessories that makes actual thinner flusher carrying profile.
At the end of the day, I want future phones to be a A4 piece of paper that I can fold up like ... a piece of paper. If it means dumping stupid billions to shave sub millimeters of generations... then I guess that's the price to pay.
This is becoming comical. iPhone Air only supports USB 2 speeds. Seriously?
Also iPhone Pro only comes with USB 3 speeds while amplifying ProRes RAW support...
I don't think I have ever plugged in my phone, like at all, ever, and it's not even an iPhone. And if I want to get any photos/videos I made with it, they are just in Google photos?
Like I get there are some people who maybe use the thing as an actual camera and they suddenly need to download tens if not hundreds of gigabytes of media off the phone but like.....I guess it's just not the phone for them? And like you said the Pro supports USB3 speeds so what's the issue? 5gbps is really not fast enough?
Pretty excited about this one. The amount of tech went into this is obviously insane. Happy to see the company is still the driver of innovation. I bet we'll see more slim phones coming up next months from other vendors.
By purchasing a new iPhone you are directly contributing to the humanitarian crisis in the Congo. A thin phone won’t change your life but it might be responsible for a life being lost.
Let me know when I can replace the battery. Of course that’ll ruin the current business model because it’ll be even more apparent how rarely we’ll need to upgrade these things.
At this point I am like “fuck (perception of) privacy!”. I will just buy the 9a, or Pixel 10a if one releases by the time I switch from my (already large) iPhone 14. At least I won’t have to deal with the never ending shenanigans, the crazy prices, and the very real possibility that if there’s a damage it might be cheaper to buy a new one (in warranty).
Now take all of that manufacturing brilliance and, keeping the volume the same, turn it into a small thick phone which will fit in my pocket and hand. Won't need a camera bump
The problem is that these people are very loud on the internet but sales for small phones are abysmal.
The laptop class (myself included) just don't understand. A huge portion of the world only has 1 computer and it's their phone. They rely on it for work, entertainment, and connectivity. They don't have a laptop where they can do all these things on whenever they want. Their phone is it. They want a big screen phone. It's no surprise that every time Apple made the screen bigger, it sold better.
I loved my 13 Mini but I understand why Apple has given up on it. It was a very good effort. They tried. Didn't sell. Maybe a foldable can solve this problem for both sides.
"all the people" do not exist. Apple is obviously good for building small devices. They have built multiple of them, explicitly, against the direction the market was going.
If "all the people" wanted these phones, they would still exist.
They nailed it. Big horizontal dimensions so it’s hard to hold in one hand (yes, I realize that many users want this, but many users don’t want this), a big thick camera so it doesn’t actually fit well in slim pockets (but lots of young people seem to like their phone sticking out of their pocket?!), and super thin everywhere else so a high capacity battery doesn’t fit. Nice job!
Seriously, Apple has not attempted a narrow high-end phone since the iPhone 5. The 12 and 13 minis were not positioned as premium phones and they did not have great cameras or battery life. If Apple had tried for a 13 Pro Mini and it didn’t sell, then maybe I’d believe that their market statistics were worth something.
I'm genuinely bummed that Apple killed the Plus iPhone.
For years, it was the perfect sweet spot -- bigger screen and bigger battery without the Pro price tag. It was especially great for elderly users: easier to read, easier to hold, and they didn't have to pay $1,000+ just to get a phone they could actually see and use.
The jump from the base model to the Plus was usually just $100, but you got a noticeably larger display and often better battery life -- the kind of practical upgrade most people actually cared about.
Now, if you want a larger screen without breaking the bank... well, you can't. Apple's lineup basically forces you into the Pro models, which feels like a loss for accessibility and for people who just want "big and simple."
I wish they'd kept the Plus around. It wasn't flashy, but it served a real audience.
when will apple make an iphone for adults? adults who need good battery life and have better things to do than take pictures for social media. a good UI wouldnt hurt either
i have been waiting for an updated iphone SE and with this event i am officially giving up. there is no phone that is simple, functional, reliable and not overpriced. apple is the company that is supposed to make it but i guess they have moved on to other strategies. instead they focus on making hideous bulges and UI that would make steve jobs’ head explode. im fed up with it
Well, a thick phone with a thick case is very thick while a thin phone with a thick case is only somewhat thick and a thin phone with a think case is only barely thick.
The thinnest phone is still the Vivo X5 Max from 10 years ago. It was 4.75 mm (iPhone Air: 5.5 mm) without significant camera bump to speak of. Here are some pictures:
The camera hump removes all the "feeling" of having a super thin phone. Also, my phone not being thin enough was never a problem I had. Laptops being thin? Yes that makes sense. But this is barely lighter than the other iPhones. It's all aesthetic.
I've been a PC guy my whole live, and was forced onto a MacBook Pro this year for work.
The battery life is insane. The idea of charging my laptop has become this weird ritual now, only known of in lore and legend, that I partake of only when there is a blood moon.
I assume they're getting ready for a folding iPhone, so the thinness tech is being developed largely for that. They're releasing this thin iPhone to test the market and to make use of it in the meantime.
Small phones don't sell well. The numbers prove this. Most people want to doom scroll or consume video content on their phones and it is better to do that when the screen is bigger.
Once again, stuff I don't care about. We would be 3x as impressed if it was 3x as wide and 3x battery life.
TouchID is also still sorely missed, and I will die on that hill. I'm on a 2022 SE hoping they change their mind one day. FaceID is a repellent experience.
hear me out: they make a slim phone, just to develop the supply chain around a foldable display to finally release a folding phone that is a sandwich of the air!
Alright, buckle up — here’s a *Curb Your Enthusiasm scene* where Larry takes the iPhone Air press release way too personally at the Apple Store.
---
### Scene: Apple Store, Santa Monica
*Larry* walks in, holding his old iPhone with a cracked screen. He approaches a blue-shirted *Apple Genius*.
*Larry:*
So I hear you got this new iPhone Air. Thinnest phone ever, huh? Five-point-six millimeters. What is this, a phone or a Wheat Thin?
*Genius:*
It’s our most advanced design yet. Stronger, lighter—
*Larry:*
Stronger? If it’s so strong, why is it thinner than a Ritz cracker? You ever eaten a Ritz cracker? Crumbles right in your hand! That’s what I’m gonna be holding here. Crumbs! Phone crumbs in my pocket!
*Larry:*
Oh! Aerospace. Yeah, good. Because when I’m playing Sudoku on the toilet, I really want NASA technology under my thumbs. Very important. “Houston, I got a number two problem.”
*Genius:*
The new 48-megapixel Fusion camera—
*Larry:*
Fusion? What am I, splitting atoms now? I just want to take a picture of a sandwich. I don’t need the Manhattan Project in my pocket. And the front camera’s square? Square! Cameras are round, wheels are round, even faces are round. You make it square, now I look like SpongeBob in every selfie.
*Genius:*
Well, the square sensor lets you take landscape photos while holding your phone vertically.
*Larry:*
Vertically? Vertically?! Oh, thank you, Apple, you’ve saved me from rotating my wrist. What a terrible burden it’s been. Centuries of humanity struggling, and finally Apple says, “Don’t move your wrist, Larry, we’ll do it for you.” Unbelievable.
*Genius:*
It also has all-day battery life.
*Larry:*
All-day? What’s “all day”? My day? Your day? A raccoon’s day? Be specific! At 11:58 p.m. the phone dies and you go, “Oh, sorry Larry, guess your day’s over!” I still got two episodes of Columbo left, pal!
*Genius:*
It’s also eSIM only.
*Larry:*
Oh, fantastic. No physical SIM. So if I lose signal, I can’t even take it out, blow on it, do the old Nintendo trick. I just stare at my \$1,000 “air” sandwich and pray. That’s the feature? Praying?
*Genius:*
It starts at \$999—
*Larry:*
Nine-ninety-nine! For a phone that could slip between two couch cushions and vanish forever. You should sell it with a metal detector. “Find your iPhone Air before it suffocates under the ottoman!”
(Larry storms out, muttering.)
*Larry:*
Thin phone, thick price. What a world.
---
Want me to *write another one where Larry’s actually at the launch keynote*, interrupting Tim Cook from the audience like a heckler?
As part of our efforts to reach carbon neutrality by 2030, iPhone Air does not include a power adapter or EarPods. Included in the box is a USB‑C Charge Cable that supports fast charging and is compatible with USB‑C power adapters and computer ports.
I was seriously thinking of buying it for a minute till I remembered how much they just exude smugness. I like apple hardware but the company absolutely disgusts me.
Eh the new bumpers and clear cases look interesting (but the white MagSafe pattern is just stupid — should just leave it off). I'll probably get an Air and one of these cases, or a thin third party case.
My experience is "air" in an Apple product's name means battery life is measured in tens of minutes and the fan makes a horrible racket because the CPU is underpowered and intended for only short suprts of activity. That's fine for a laptop because you can keep it plugged in and use your other computer to do tasks that require CPU, but not appropriate for a mobile phone that you may want to operate untethered for hours at a time.
I'm sure Apple's official word on this is battery life is sufficient for more than a couple of hours of untethered stand-by. I'm just questioning the wisdom of the naming convention. They trained their user community to understand that "air" means low-CPU power / low battery life / thinner package. Are there enough potential customers who will prioritize thin form factor over usability?
Nevermind. I just answered my own question.
[Edit: I understand the Apple fanbois will want to down-vote this, but look at the second sentence of the second paragraph. I am not saying the iPhone Air will be bad. I am saying that the "Air" name has, in the past, been applied to some pretty sub-standard products. I am asking if it's wise to apply a name that has been used for lower-end products to new products that aren't "lower end."]
It's been long enough that this doesn't seem true anymore. The current Macbook Air is fanless, and has around 18 hours of battery life with an 8-core M4.
Imagine putting the phone on the table and seeing it rocking side to side when you press it, the nightmare. Somebody needs to change this stupid trend urgently, we don't need thinner phones.
What I would like is an iphone for like $200 with a stable set of features that I don't have to buy off the used market. I don't care if it's 2 generations behind, because these new phones don't offer anything I care about.
As far as I can tell from the announcement, they're focusing on content creators. Since I don't stream and am not an Instagrammer, it's irrelevant to me. Selling me one of these cameras is just a waste. I don't even know how to make the phone use the second (or third) camera.
This with the glass ui thing feels like now they're doing "innovation" for the sake of "innovation". But as someone said on the other thread about this thing (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45185576), at this point they could just make a cardboard phone, wrap it with some fancy words and would sell it like crazy.
I see many comments screaming "WE NEED MORE BATTERY LIFE!"
I'm curious who needs more battery life than the iPhone air will provide? Every single person I know of commutes to and from work daily either in a car where they can charge their phone or to a desk that has a charger (wired or wireless).
The iPhone Air is rated for 27 hours of videoplayback. Let's say it works for a QUARTER of that, its still 7 hours of playback.
What kind of people are away from a charger for more than 7 hours who also only consume content for those 7 hours on a regular basis?
What kind of individuals are these? Please explain
I am not using a car, I do not commute, I do not go to an office.
I usually spend my days outside, roaming the city, sitting in parks and cafes. I have a 13mini and started to carry a lightweight power bank in my backpack because it tends to run empty before I get back home, which is a problem with electronic ticket for public transport.
A lot of people will also simply prefer the convenience of not having to plug their phone in more often than necessary. They have it in their backpack or purse, which makes it extra inconvenient to think of taking it out just to charge plus needing a cable and charger in multiple places, compared to the evenings when you may remove multiple items from it.
Proximity to a charger isn’t the answer. I’m home all day, but I still don’t want to be monitoring battery life all day or tied to chargers. I only want to change while I sleep.
I have a 16 Pro and every so often something runs in the background that destroys my battery in half a day. I still don’t know what it is. The settings don’t make it clear.
I haven’t complained about the battery life on the Air, but I’d rather have a bigger battery to the point of eliminating the camera bump, than having a marginally thinner phone that shoves everything in a bigger relative bump.
It has A19 Pro. A19 Pro has matmul acceleration in its GPU, the equivalent of Nvidia's Tensor cores. This would make future Macs extremely viable for local LLMs. Currently, Macs have high memory bandwidth and high VRAM capacity but low prompt processing speeds. Give it a large context and it'll take forever before the first token is generated.
If the M5 generation gets this GPU upgrade, which I don't see why not, then the era of viable local LLM inferencing is upon us.
That's the most exciting thing from this Apple's event in my opinion.
PS. I also like the idea of the ultra thin iPhone Air, the 2x better noise cancellation and live translation of Airpods 3, high blood pressure detection of the new Watch, and the bold sexy orange color of the iPhone 17 Pro. Overall, this is as good as it gets for incremental updates in Apple's ecosystem in a while.
> bold sexy orange color
Luckily they added the blood pressure check for when you get too excited about the color orange.
A19 supports MTE: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45186265
Which is a very powerful feature for anyone who likes security or finding bugs in their code. Or other people's code. Even if you didn't really want to find them.
If you compare the specs of the 10 and 11 series watches you will see they both claim high blood pressure detection.
https://www.apple.com/watch/compare/?modelList=watch-series-...
In the past few weeks the oxymeter feature was enabled by a firmware update on series 10. Measurements are done on the watch, results are only reported on a phone.
> the bold sexy orange color of the iPhone 17 Pro
The color line up reminds me of the au MEDIA SKIN phones (Japanese carrier) circa 2007. Maybe it's because I had one back in the day, but I can't help but think they took some influence.
I wish they would offer the 17 pro in some lighter colors (like the new sage green for the regular 17). Not everyone wants bold, and the color selection for pro is always so limited. They don't even have white with this generation, just silver.
Hoping this budget macbook rumour based on A19/A19 Pro is real.
I've always been a bit confused about when to run models on the GPU vs the neural engine. The best I can tell, GPU is simpler to use as a developer especially when shipping a cross platform app. But an optimized neural engine model can run lower power.
With the addition of NPUs to the GPU, this story gets even more confusing...
I was reminded of this today for no particular reason:
"iPhone4 vs HTC Evo"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg
Where did you see the matmul acceleration support? I couldn't find this detail online.
The first SoC including Neural Engine was the A11 Bionic, used in iPhone 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X, introduced in 2017. Since then, every Apple A-series SoC has included a Neural Engine.
> If the M5 generation gets this GPU upgrade, which I don't see why not, then the era of viable local LLM inferencing is upon us.
I don't think local LLMs will ever be a thing except for very specific use cases.
Servers will always have way more compute power than edge nodes. As server power increases, people will expect more and more of the LLMs and edge node compute will stay irrelevant since their relative power will stay the same.
I will believe this when I see it. It’s totally possible that those capabilities are locked behind some private API or that there’s some weedsy hardware complication not mentioned that makes them non-viable for what we want to do with them.
Good luck actually getting access to ANE. There is a reason why Pytorch doesn't use it even if its been around for a while.
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So.. 6 hour batteries like the Apple Watch?
IMO it's underwhelming considering folding phones have been out for many years now and we still don't have a folding iPhone. What are the PMs doing at Apple.
It's not about the thickness — this is surely Apple just flexing some of the engineering work that has gone into building a future foldable phone (which inevitably requires thinner hardware to fit two screens in the thickness of one).
So don't take this at face value, it's just a prelude to a foldable phone next year.
Probably right because it’s called iPhone Air and not iPhone 17 Air. Seems like this is a one off phone.
> prelude to a foldable phone next year
Or perhaps a prelude to small, triangle-shaped phone that users stick on a shirt or lapel, and tap to activate.
https://startrekshop.ca/products/star-trek-the-next-generati...
I'm going to add +1 to the crowd that thinks that almost no one ever said "Nice, but I wish it was thinner". Who would that be really? Surely apple made their market research before spending the R&D money creating this product. So presumably there is a market segment for it. But who is it?
The standard 17 and Pro seems very much the great product they always are. Incremental refinement. Don't like it? Get one 1-2 generations older. My iPhone 11 still feels very much good enough (which I imagine must be terrible for Apple). Perhaps their idea is that you can't just refine the 15-16-17 every year. You need to try _something_ else, or eventually people will stop paying attention?
This is total speculation on my uninformed part, but to me, the Air seems like the result of their research into foldables. The way hardware is laid out in that upper area is very reminiscent of the Flip category from other manufacturers with their a-symmetric halfs and considering Apple is a very efficiency focused company these days, letting that effort linger till display tech catches up to whatever Apple is waiting for, would feel like a waste perhaps.
Also, as long as we retain an actual Pro version that is willing to be a bit chunkier, I don't see any issue in having an Air line for casual users, maybe that will be the way mainstream devices go with future efficiency gains, similar to the MacBook Air now being "good enough" for most people. Silicon-carbon batteries will likely enable some of that pretty soon, suspect that like with GaN, the supply chain cannot handle Apple level demands yet. Remember, the original three MacBook Airs were beyond compromised too.
Just don't fall into the trap of making the Pro thinner, akin to the 2016 MacBook Pro disaster. Keep the iPhone Pros like the current MacBook Pros chunky for those who actually use these devices and we are golden in my book.
I've ever owned an iPhone and probably never will, but I very much like smaller, lighter, thinner. For a device that stays with you all day, the less cumbersome the better, no?
> My iPhone 11 still feels very much good enough (which I imagine must be terrible for Apple)
I think Apple has come to terms with the fact that people are no longer upgrading their phones every 1-2 years. They are probably happy just to keep you in the Apple ecosystem where they can sell you apps, services, accessories, other compatible apple products - and hopefully get your repeat business when you do one day feel the need to upgrade.
The issue with size I have with phones is that they are too high, so I cannot have it in my jeans front pocket and then sit down.
Thinness has not been an issue in the last 10-15 years.
A thin phone is also very hard to hold, it kind of flips in your hand.
I’d very much prefer a phone that’s shaped like a slab (smooth back), no weird camera plateaus and no sad excuse for a battery, but something that can last days.
I have 14 Max, and it is so heavy. I don’t mind the thickness, but the weight is very annoying.
So while I didn’t say “I wish my phone was thinner”, I did say many times “this should weigh about half of what it actually weighs”.
Agree. I don’t understand the teen of making the phones thinner but larger. I guess I’m part of the small demographics that love the mini, hope my mini 12 have a couple or more years of live in it.
It's not just about thin. It's also about weight. The Air has a bigger screen but weighs less than the iPhone 17.
When you need to stack 2 phones together because you're oncall, because you're a streamer, etc.
Honestly I do. I want it thinner and lighter. I don’t use my phone very much so I don’t care about battery very much nor do I about any kind of specs. Wait… yeah that’s why I won’t buy it I love my iPhone 13 mini
People who have no concept of material resistance who will come crying when their phone folds very easily with accidental day to day mishaps
Can someone that is actually interested in this explain the appeal? Thin on its own I get but thin with a giant bump 100% defeats the whole point for me. Seems clear at this point there is little hope of them engineering their way into thin cameras.
Doubt most people want it as thin as possible. This is just the phone industry running out of ideas and trying to tell people what they actually need.
There's not much left to "fix" on mobile phones, and no real important features to add. Lacking that, they need something to sell the phones with, so they're going for these strange "improvements". It needs to be something that has some wow factor so they can lead with. This seems to somehow work on normal people so they'll keep doing these "improvements".
I expect in the future they'll pull this trick again, moving bits of the phone upwards towards camera, and create a second notch from half way down, where the phone will get even thinner, and they'll sell that.
The good thing about the bump is that it should make it easier to pick up the phone from a desk.
The size and weight of the phone does look tempting, but its battery life is a deal breaker for me. I'm pretty sure there's no way its built-in speakers could possibly match those in the Pro models, which is also very important to me.
I agree with you, you're still going to put it in a fat case to protect the camera.
Personally, I think thin is just "omg look at my engineering". blah blah.
I found the (expensive!) bullstrap case to be helpful - thin and slippery enough to slide out of a pocket easily, well engineered to protect the camera.
But really, I think the iphone 13 mini was the most useful/practical application of apple's engineering.
I think a mini-sized 3-camera bulge phone would be great.
I'm going to preorder one because I want a light phone and a large screen. This will be the lightest iPhone in years while also having a bigger screen than most. I dropped from the Pro Max to the Pro last year because I was tired of how much it hurt when I dropped my phone on my face.
I don't have much call for most of the camera system, and my battery life on my Pro is just fine. I have plenty of chargers typically, and for emergencies or times I know I'm going to be out I could potentially get the battery pack.
I basically never use cases on my iPhone, and at most will maybe use an ultra-thin one or some sort of structure adhered to the plateau just to make it flat across so as to not rock on a table.
Even more annoyingly, the bump is non-uniform with lens extruding even further from the entire bump. I have been annoyed by this design ever since they started with it. The last phone the design of which brought joy for me was my OnePlus 3T - thin and light. It also had the camera bump though which I would gladly sacrifice even if it meant a lower quality camera. On the other hand, I suppose they could just insert a thicker battery and make the whole phone a bit thicker but remove the bump.
It's a weird cyclical thing.
Samsung galaxy s2 was a super small super thin phone, 15 years ago almost, which still had user replaceable battery, microsd, 3.5mm, gps, and everything most people would expect smartphone to have.
We then spent a decade making phones 0.2" bigger each generation as if that's an advancement - I.e. As if we couldn't have made them big in the first place (all the while removing physical features).
Then we started making them thin again, as if we couldn't have made them thin before.
It makes me think of cars - VW golf used to be a small car, then it kept growing... So they released Polo... Which kept growing so they made lupo... But each year my entire life they have ads like "6 inches bigger than before" or "10cm more legroom than competition", as if there haven't been small and large cars before.
Grumble Grumble, seen it all before, kids get off my lawn :-)
Easy mid-way product realization from research they had to do for folding phones.
It's about the size and even more importantly the weight. I like small, light phones (I currently have the iphone 13 mini). I want something small that I can slip into my pocket and it's not this brick bouncing around as take a walk.
Although, I'm not a big phone user though, mainly use it when I'm outside of the house. In the house, I'll just use my laptop.
> Can someone that is actually interested in this explain the appeal?
It’s light and the thinness is just fun. I’m not putting a case on it. And I really don’t understand why a phone needs to sit flat on a table—if anything, the angle is a plus.
Several brands have released an ultra thin version of their phone, followed by a foldable version of their phone. One phone depth is good for just about everyone, but you can't double that up, you'd get a phone that's too bulky for modern tastes.
It stands to reason the iFold/iPaper/iSheet/whatever Apple will call it is drawing closer now that Samsung and several Chinese brands have pretty much solved the design for Apple.
Bearing in mind I haven't looked at specs yet...
I be been struggling with the 14 pro's weight. So that would mainly be my interest here.
Also almost certainly less likely to get obsoleted by some AI feature given the higher end GPU cores.
iPhone status symbol without having to haul around a huge bulky phone.
Most users probably use/need 10% of what a max pro iPhone offers, but they want 100% of the max pro status.
Now they can keep the status without needing to carry a chonker.
Optics is not going to be "solved" by anything but some fascinating kind of metamaterial.
The thinness makes it easier to grip around the phone laterally. Think of it like having a slightly smaller basketball, which more people would be able to palm. Easier for holding, easier for one-handed typing.
This phone has the highest screen area to weight ratio except for the Galaxy S25 Edge.
They sacrificed size for battery life, just like with the mini models, just in another dimension. Since the minis were cancelled I expect this model to undergo the same fate. Maybe it's just an experiment? Call it an A-B test.
Some people will like the way it looks, have money, and don't care as much about overall performance/utility. Much in the same way a Rolex and Timex both tell time.
They’ve shrunk the phone so much that the bump is the computer + optics, strapped to a screen and battery.
The Air and Pro are essentially the same with a different skin. It’s a big deal imo as the phone itself is practically modular. It’s pretty brilliant as they can make the computer part in China and Taiwan and probably ship that unit to various locales for different form factors.
It's also not actually that much more lightweight, compared to the 6.1" iPhones.
Lighter == better, thinner == cooler. Phones are essentially identical these days anyways, and choosing one over another is based on ever-minimizing differences. Now that you can't even install third-party apps easily on Android, this is more true than ever.
I largely agree, but when we hold phones it is generally by the side without the camera. That means that this phone will feel smaller in the hand, which could be a very effective marketing gimmick to upsell people from the base iPhone.
I liked the older thinner phones for the pocket-ability. Less of an issue with jeans but more so with lighter shorts or suits etc
I'm not an apple user, not into their design choices... but if i had a choice, i'd much prefer a phone as thick as the camera with a 3x the battery capacity.
I'd even go with a millimeter or two thicker to have the backplate attached by screws and the battery easily user replacable after a few years.
I don’t get it either. They’re more difficult to hold.
>"Thin on its own I get but thin with a giant bump 100% defeats the whole point for me. Seems clear at this point there is little hope of them engineering their way into thin cameras."
I have this recurring vision of what could have been if we never lost Steve before the industry went whole hog in on the camera bump fad. It goes something like this:
SCENE: Steve Jobs' office on the eve of the iPhone 7 release
"Hey Steve here's the new prototype for iPhone 7, we think you're going to love it!"
Steve picks up the phone, fumbles it around for a moment, flips it over, and runs his index finger over the camera bump
"You're fired. Now, you" points to another engineer "Get rid of the bump."
And just like that, we were saved from this nightmare. Alas, the world is shit now and no one cares about anything anymore. But I can say without question he would have never allowed it.
total phone volume is what determines how well the phone fits in your pocket. especially on women's pants with small pockets. a thin phone with a bump will fit better than a thicker phone.
the argument that the bump defeats the purpose of a thin phone is only true if you're trying to squeeze it through a narrow gap in a rigid object.
Easy. Top part is not where people holding their phones.
It's more about physics than hope. There's not much you can do with lenses miniaturization after a certain point (which we already reached). The result is more and more computational stuff, which Apple does somewhat gracefully, but still in a way that sets the iPhone photos apart from a camera, and not in a good way.
It weighs a lot less. My pinky hurts and 99% of my photos are selfies, so I’d rather have less mass than more camera; I’ll rent a Leica if I want truly excellent photographs. Also my purse is hella full all the time so every less millimeter of phone makes it easier to get stuff out of the pockets, get phone out of purse, etc. Also it’ll fit with less bulge into my side-thigh pockets and pull less on the waistband, which is handy for my skirts and leggings and undershorts that all that have that.
You don’t hold the camera bump…
It still takes up less room in your pocket.
There's nowhere to go with phones than thinner if you aren't doing folding. Thinness has practical value but past a certain point, probably not very much.
Marketing will create hype and desire and the feeling of exclusiveness. Those will lead to sales.
Not every big change is an actual innovation. A lot if just engineering sales via these methods, which aren't very different than fashion, jewelry, or luxury cars.
I might get one because I'm always a bit forced to follow the curve and can't afford to look 'backwards' or 'old fashioned' to stakeholders in the workplace, people in my life, etc who's good side I need to stay on who believe in the above dynamic.
Same question here. Why would I buy this instead of folding phones that provide a tablet-like screen on demand?
Because China.
Ben Thompson (Stratechery) has been documenting for almost a decade that the biggest driver of new phone sales in China is a new form factor.
I’m sure that might be the same in other markets where an iPhone is a status symbol. It’s definitely not one in the US where 60% of phone buyers have iPhones.
it is the precipice of stupidity. making an ugly, mis-shaped phone and calling it thinner than ever. its fugly. just make the guts thinner and use the extra space for more battery. thats what everyone wants. but apple wont do it because they arent brave anymore. they arent brave enough to stick out
No problem, the next iteration is a phone without a camera. And they will tell us that no one wants a camera oh his phone. And then they sell bluetooth cameras as extra.
Aren’t you glad they have not called it something like Thin™ or True Thin™ or some shit?
making it thinner than the camera save us a ton o money on battery materials!
signed, apple CFO
I think they are appealing to the Razor crowd /s
I have an iPhone 13 mini, just replaced the battery. If you want my money, give me an iPhone 17 mini with small width and height, I don't care about it being thinner like the Air. Also, no AI ruining the image quality of the expensive camera. I saw examples of a consumer-grade digital camera vs an iPhone 16 and the latter introduced "hotdog skin" effect and other effects that made the photos look over-processed.
Also still rocking a 13 mini. There are dozens of us! Dozens!
(Also to those who say not enough people wanted a mini phone to be worth producing: I submit the case of Prego chunky pasta sauce. Not many people want a chunky pasta sauce, but you sell a whole lot more pasta sauce in total if you sell both regular and chunky pasta sauce. Malcolm Gladwell has a TED talk about this.)
I love my iPhone 12 mini, the screen has great pixel density better than the 16 or 17 even. It is compact and light, easy to put in and out of the pocket. The battery is not great and the peak luminosity could be better, but it still runs so well in 2025. I've been contemplating buying a new one since the back glass is shattered and the front is scratched, the battery is also getting worse. I don't think it's viable now to get it fixed.
So I might reluctantly grab one of the new ones.
Unfortunately both the 12 Mini and the 13 Mini did terrible numbers sales-wise. People say they want small phones but not enough of them actually buy them when they are available. :(
I've got a 12 mini and honestly it's the perfect size. Every year I hope they bring back a proper compact flagship, but instead we get thinner, not smaller
I own a 12 mini, and I'm planning to upgrade my phone this year, it's time. If there were an iPhone 17 mini, I'd buy it, but because there isn't one, I'll probably go for the Pro to get a bigger battery. Apple knows that many folks like me would buy a cheaper mini if there were one, and not spend as much on Pro.
Reading this and replying on the 13 Mini. Love it so much but wouldn’t mind if it were a little lighter. If it stays the same forever, I think I’d still buy it. Great phone. P.S. I work at home, so battery life is not my biggest concern.
My main phone for a year or so has been a unihertz jelly star. Kind of an extreme but it's so nice in your hand / pocket. Definitely not thin though!
I loved the mini and bought both the 12 and 13 mini. Also bought it for my siblings. Unfortunately after its sales Apple is very unlikely to ever make a small phone again.
I had the 12 mini. Perfect size, but awful battery life due to how thin they decided to make it. Give me a mini with more than half-day battery life and I'll queue on release day.
Stop. Making. Things. Thinner.
What is hotdog skin?
I want an extra thick model instead, let’s call it iPhone Travel (or Ultra?). Just thick enough so the cameras are no longer sticking out. Give me an all-week battery instead of an all-day one. Slim down the power usage and give a power saver mode that actually does make a difference. Let me go on a weekend trip in nature or festival without having to carry extra hardware or having to look for public charging stations.
Personally, I really like being able to use lightweight MagSafe batteries instead of having a thicker iPhone. I used to agree with you, but the tech has gotten ridiculously good the last couple of years.
With something like https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HRY02LL/A/anker-maggo-pow..., you get a magsafe battery that doubles the life of an iPhone and can be independently recharged, and is so slim that I can put it in my pocket attached to my iPhone and not notice.
Just get the MagSafe battery, then you've got your extra-thick. It already exists.
It's not going to last you all week though. That's not going to just be thick, it's going to be a cube heavy enough to double up as a weapon.
Yes. Give me the iPhone 17 Pro Ultra. It's the Pro Max, but even more battery. Heavier duty case. Like I'm put the thing in a case that makes it big and bulky already, if you give me a heavy duty enough setup that I feel safe letting it go naked, people might actually see the status symbol... instead of the dbrand sticker.
Thick is easy. Get a battery case. I used to have one that allowed for swappable samsung batteries packs that was great.
This is why I mostly stick with the Moto G models which have easily multi-day battery and cost sub $250.
Phones are tools, not fashion statements.
I don’t think many people would like a phone that is twice as heavy all the time. At least battery packs can be taken off.
If few people would buy it, Apple won't produce it. I think the Air will flop for this reason.
But that will rob people of those multiple extremely satisfying feelings across those one or two years, before they change the iPhone, of paying more to Apple for battery packs and then another and then another… etc. You should think of that as well.
this makes absolute sense. most of the times when my iphone 14 is literally in life support. honestly would trade off the thickness to not have to charge everyday
Back when replaceable batteries were a thing I got this beast for my Galaxy Note 4 - https://blog.gsmarena.com/zerolemon-offers-10000mah-extended... ... it was ridiculous but awesome.
will someone please make this? a phone with a browser, basic camera, large battery and a UI that doesnt suck ass? a phone for adults that is affordable? i want more and more each day to get away from apple
iPhone Thicc- body positivity!
iPhone Travel? Please. We don’t go on Craig-approved drug-fueled vision quests just to land on mediocrity like that. You’re close though.
It’s gonna be the iPhone Voyager.
"Impossibly thin" is right in line with Patrick McGee's "Apple in China" who argues that the main reason for Apple's designs is to keep imitators at bay by introducing manufacturing challenges that only they can meet. Indeed impossible at the time of release. One generation after the other. He estimates this gains them about 6 months of headway. Tough world.
(Yes, to be fair, there is more to this new phone than just "impossibly thin".)
The Samsung S25 Edge, which has already been on the market for a while, seems to be pretty popular.
It's 0.16mm thicker than the Air. I've got to admit it was surprisingly pleasant to hold.
I even did a low key bend test and it did not bend, but I literally had store security walk up to me and ask me not to do that.
https://www.samsung.com/us/smartphones/galaxy-s25-edge/
This just seems like Apple's reality distortion field in full force. There are already thinner phones. Just like there were thinner laptops than Macbook Air when it was launched but Apple fans in their Apple bubble hadn't heard of them and so bought Apple's propaganda.
I say this as someone that owns 2 MacBooks Pros, an Apple TV and an iPhone.
Is anyone buying an iPhone because it's slightly thinner than other phones? I've never heard anyone say the width of the phone was their reason for picking an iPhone, or any phone for that matter.
What’s the evidence for which way causality works? Apple solving design problems they care about would inevitably involve solutions only viable at their scale. It’s hard to say whether that’s how they choose their design problems.
Their process seems pretty similar to their approach with unibody MacBooks or the original MacBook Air, both of which were introduced long before imitators were their primary competition.
That was partly true when he was writing the book or doing research, but is no longer true today. China have manage to make phone that is under 5mm, and even stated the only thing that is stopping them getting even thinner is the USB-C port.
Thinnest smartphone so far is Chinese HONOR Magic V5 folding phone at 4.1mm, though. iPhone Air is thicker by 1.5mm(1/16") at 5.6mm. Thinnest Samsung Galaxy is 5.8mm.
But on the other hand, apple seems to be the only company unable to get rid of that ugly huge notch. Everyone else improved on that years ago.
I sincerely hope that apple will consider making a phone with a worse camera that is flatter. As someone who rarely takes photos, and never photos of importance, the bump is just a dead weight to me. My dream phone has a body like iPhone 12 mini (which I currently use) without the protruding camera. As long as it runs all the common communication apps reliably, I'm happy. I'll pay $100 more than the standard body version even. But it doesn't seem like apple (or any notable phone brand) thinks this is worth doing.
It's the peril of being a niche customer. I can and have voted with my wallet, but it doesn't nudge the needle anyway.
> As someone who rarely takes photos, and never photos of importance
Even people who do take photos often would probably gladly sacrifice some image quality to loose that massive thing on the back of the phone. The thinness of the phone almost make it look worse as long as that camera sticks out like that; like a huge watch with a thin strap or something...
> My dream phone has a body like iPhone 12 mini (which I currently use) without the protruding camera.
Sounds similar to the iPhone 4, still my favorite of all the form factors in terms of "hand feel". It was the right thickness for me, just a bit heavy for it's size. If they refreshed it to reduce weight and extended the screen to the borders I think it would be amazing
You might want to check the 16e. It has 16 insides (without magsafe and uwb chip), with screen from 14 and not very protruding (although still) but good camera. Its also cheaper than base model iphone.
If you take Apple's presentation at face value, most of the iPhone Air hardware is within the plateau, with the rest of the body being almost entirely battery. So it's not immediately obvious that even if they did do away with the bump, that there'd be a useable phone left over once considering the necessary reduction in battery size.
it looks like the bump doesn’t have just the camera but also some other stuff like the processor ?
Pixel 9a is the closest to a no bump phone out of the major brands.
I agree with this so much. I recently upgraded to the 13 Mini and had to go back to the 12 Mini because I hated the big camera thing on the back. I actually like the 12 Mini camera more than the 13 Mini also. It felt like the 13 Mini couldn’t take close up photos worth a damn.
> iPhone Air features N1, a new Apple-designed wireless networking chip that enables Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread.
Congrats to Apple for finally designing out Broadcom and vertically integrating the wireless chip
Wireless chipsets have just always been notoriously unreliable. It will be interesting to see Apple can improve reliability here.
Very interesting that it has Thread too. I wonder if that will be a somewhat viable system in a decade. (Show me where I can buy a cheap Thread border gateway that isn't an Apple or Google voice assistant or whatever.)
I wonder if they will eventually add NFC to it. It probably needs to be certified since NFC is used for payments.
I wonder why they don't put it to 17/Pro.
doubling down on matter! Adoption has been slow but it is starting to ramp up quicker
That is the dumbest side profile I have ever seen. The camera bump and camera together are thicker than the rest of this thing. By its design it now demands a massive case or just won't ever sit even reasonably flat on a table. Ridiculous.
It will arguably sit flatter than the prior iPhones, which rock diagonally. This will be tilted a bit, but at least be stable.
"Just" put an magsafe battery on the back.
1. Create a problem.
2. Sell the solution.
3. Profit.
Why should a phone sit flat on a table? What's the advantage of that?
I seriously don't understand this (common) complaint that I see. If anything a slight tilt makes the screen a bit more readable.
Right now I have to lean my phone on my purse to get a nice reading angle, because the lens block is lopsided and my phone wobbles around otherwise. The Air bump is still a better angle than flat, and I bet the lens doesn’t keep it from resting stably on the lower edge of the chin (?) rather than the lens edge.
The camera bump is there for the same reason the wireless mouse has the charge port on the bottom: Apple want you to hold it.
It will tilt towards you which would actually be more ergonomic than lying flat.
My iPhone 16 Pro with a case doesn't shit flat. I don't see why this is a problem.
The 16e is 167 grams, where the Air is 165 grams. It feels like the Air is to the 16e what the Pro is to the standard titled iPhone — the expensive version.
Which makes the marketing feel a bit incongruent with what we've gotten here. It's not noticeably more lightweight than what is currently offered, it's less featureful than the 17, but more expensive than the 17 (albeit perhaps prettier).
It seems like engineering failed to make a true superlight in its class despite narratively trying to re-evoke what we really did experience with the original MacBook Air. Instead we got an elegant up sized 16e priced like a Pro.
It's also a bit weird that iPhone Air being an Air is more expensive. MacBook Air and iPad Air are the cheaper options in contrast
Footprint to weight ratio is an important factor. S25 Edge weights 163g but it felt noticeably lighter in hand than other phones with similar weight.
You fail to mention that the 17 and 16e don't only differ by weight. Miniaturization is costly.
This has a couple of up sides.
1. Biggest is that Apple can finally tell if people really want a thinner phone (I don’t). Maybe once they find out the answer, they can finally start using the space more productively.
2. They mentioned local LLM in passing, but this is the biggest possible selling point of the executives actually back real work on making them consumer-level easy. Have a LLM marketplace. Let users sub-train with their own ideas and local data. Enable users to privately and safely port their personal LLMs to their next Apple. Apple has the best most efficient hardware available and they have it in millions of pockets. It’s about time they use that to become the dominant phone and personal device maker. Instead of focusing on anorexic phones.
Sigh. I can't stand the camera bump. I would run not walk to the nearest Apple store with all my savings if they made a phone where the camera bump is made flush by adding thickness elsewhere to match, filled with extra battery. Thing would last for weeks. Ah well back to reality.
It's thinner, but at 165 grams it's not appreciably lighter than a regular-sized iPhone (the 16e in particular at 167 grams). People generally want a more lightweight phone more than they want a thinner phone. So it's only for people who also want a larger-than-regular iPhone screen.
> Biggest is that Apple can finally tell if people really want a thinner phone (I don’t).
It's going to be so painful if the answer is yes.
> Apple can finally tell if people really want a thinner phone
They would need to sell two otherwise equivalent new models att the same time where one is thicker for that.
Whenever Apple releases a new phone, I like to visit this page to actually compare it to previous models
https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare
Also, It's a bummer that they didn't launch something for the mini series. I prefer smaller screens that fit into my pocket, I don't care about thinness. 13-mini will be the last iPhone I can upgrade to in a few years, after that I'll have to look into other phones
Another thing that stuck out, what's the point with having such a thin phone, yet the camera system points out? I would much prefer a complete flat backside
I'll vote with my wallet
https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone-17,ip...
Interesting. So apart of camera and battery life, the upgrade from iphone 12 mini to iphone 17 is unimpressive and for someone like me who likes smaller sized phones and don't care about refresh rate (my goal is to decrease my screen time rather then increase), its actually a downgrade.
Thanks to this site, i've just realized that the ip17 has bigger screen than ip16.
When a phone costs north of 1000USD something is terribly wrong. 99% of "modern" phone use is basically (doom) scrolling, browsing the web, using core apps (like maps) for directions, taking pictures and finally communicating with whatsapp and making the odd/rare old school phone call.
This should not require spending 1000-1500USD on a phone.
Im doing all of the above with a iPhone SE for what i paid like 300-350USD for.
Second hand phones are even cheaper, just change the battery and you are good to go.
You can hate Apple for it, but the phone costs $1000+ because people will buy it. Apple has been proven right year after year since 2017 (iPhone X)
You can still do everything you mentioned on a $150 phone, which exists in parts of the world. If anything, one could complain that the $150 phone still takes pictures worse than an iPhone 5
Okay, if your use case doesn’t require it, then don’t buy it…? You aren’t the only person in the world and some people might actually make use of this phone’s features(?)
People pay for how they look (which is fine) not what they do.
Recession indicator handset
im on an SE too and i have no idea what ill buy when this phone dies… i would rather buy an android than get a 16e
Incredible lift-to-weight ratio is going to contribute to epic hang times from this thing while the camera bump provides a center of gravity for it to rotate around for predictable flight paths.
Talking about using this thing as a boomerang?
Nicknamed The Tomahawk
The bumper is back! I was one of the weirdos who liked it unironically for the iPhone 4 back in the day, antennagate prevention aside.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MH004ZM/A/iphone-air-bump...
It's $39, but if it's indeed rigid as the description implies, then it may be a legit option for drop protection without compromising the thinness.
I've long been inured to the Apple Tax, but that $60 plastic strap is taking it a bit too far IMO
Won't it still significantly add to the thickness, at least in terms of making one-handed typing harder?
...unless it lands on the big protruding camera lens.
5.6 mm? Pah! The Moto Z beat them by .4 mm almost 10 years ago: https://www.androidheadlines.com/2025/05/the-moto-z-was-so-a... And, more importantly, the Moto Z had a reason for being so thin: the ability to add "mods" that attached to the back of the phone magnetically.
What I don't like about iPhones in terms of practicality is that the corner camera makes it impossible to lay them on a table without wobbling. Google does a better job with its Pixel phones.
> The Moto Z beat them
The unfortunate part is that you can make anything better in a single parameter, but Apple has effectively no competitors. People who buy Apple will continue to buy Apple.
For people to switch, the competition has to come out with something that is visibly and unbeatably better than what Apple has.
I know many people in developing countries who'd rather have a 5 year old iPhone than a new android.
I just want them to release a new iteration of 13 Mini at some point. I don't want a larger phone, I don't care about how thin it is with a massive extruding camera bump; give me an actual handheld phone.
For now my 13 Mini works perfectly fine so I'm in no rush, but when the time comes, I'm going going to buy a massive device that I can't comfortable use with a single hand.
We’re a dying breed. I wish they’d just turn the SE line into minis.
It's wild to see the HN crowd, bleeding-edge technologists, regularly bring up "lying flat on a table" as a critical feature for a supercomputer inside a camera that fits in your pocket.
Somebody (many somebodies?) is rolling over in his grave.
"a supercomputer inside a camera that fits in your pocket" stopped being a novelty 15 years ago. We call it just "phone" now!
"lying flat on a table" is a critical feature for a device that on a daily basis lays on the table.
If it clanks and thuds every time you press it (and pressing it is the only way to use it) while lying on the table, then it is bad design that should be addressed.
Maybe a supercomputer from a 1980s perspective.
Maybe this will take off like hotcakes but I'm in the "I don't think this does anything for me / anyone" camp.
Granted I loved the 13 mini and that didn't sell so who knows.
It’s clear that super thinness is a technology imperative necessary to get Foldable IPhones. In order to fold, you first must solve thinness (since the final decide will be 2x once folded).
Apple focusing on thinness is proof to me a foldable phone is next.
I lament my 13 mini coming to the end of its lifespan. Good design.
> Granted I loved the 13 mini
It is almost as good as the (smaller) first gen iPhone SE with the physical button.
The group this does something for is the shareholders. Apple is still a product company, but their number one offering is AAPL.
"It starts at $999 for 256GB", I on the other hand am in the "prices gotten ridicilous" camp
Clearly there is a disconnect between what commenters want and what actually sells.
The marketing shows what sells. People want to be 25, hot, in cool places with cool looking friends, with great lighting.
Yes; the mini phones never sold very well, yet there are always commenters that ask for it. There are no small phones on the market, even the asus zenphone - which used to be the best compact android - is just a big phone now.
Also, satisfied people don't have any need to comment.
$0.25 fentanyl sells good. Doesn't mean it's what people need.
"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."
It's more the other two dimensions that I want shrunk. Did anyone think their phone was too thick to fit in their pocket?
No kidding. I just want one that I can use one handed again. I’m on the IPhone SE, have hands that can play an octave + 2 additional keys on a piano, and I can’t reach the whole screen with a single hand.
I’m probably just holding it wrong.
We're in the minority. The iPhone Minis did not sell well. I think women especially do not want a small phone because they carry it in a purse anyway (and slap a case on it with an extra handle to make it easier to hold).
I recently doubled the thickness of my iPhone SE by adding an external battery. Fits in my jeans pocket fine along with several other things in the same pocket. If they can get it that thin, why don't they just add more battery and take us back to the time when we could run phones for weeks between charges.
[edit] I'll answer my own question. Nobody is going to replace an iPhone because it drops from 21 days battery to 14 days battery, but they probably will replace an iPhone that drops from 21 hours battery to 14 hours.
Yep. I keep holding out for a new Mini. They keep making phones wider and taller. Thanks Apple!
I’m still holding onto my 12 mini wishing they would update it. Perfect size imo.
I like the size of a regular iPhone. What I really want is a lighter phone. Unfortunately, compared to the iPhone 17, the Air is about 30% thinner, with worse battery life, camera, etc, but only around 7% lighter. I was expecting at least 20% lighter if it's called "Air".
Exactly.. and it’s not even the height. It’s mainly the width + placements of UI elements at the top.
Air could’ve been the perfect mini replacement. Same width, but higher.
But no.. why get the air when the pro has so much more of everything, and is only 100 more
You have to sacrifice screen size to shrink the other dimensions, and they already have smaller screen iPhones. It seems most people care more about big screens than size in that dimension
I’ve been a little concerned that the (non-transparent) back is “protected” by glass. I understand that Marketing has to work with what they’re given, but that’s a bit much.
I got the Samsung 25 Edge and did move from a the regular sized phone to "plus" without the constraints and weight that usually follows. I can reach the screen edges that I can't on the same size plus version. Added bonus that i don't get a strain in my pinky from the weight and its still very pocketable. So I'm sold on thinner phones except the wobble from hell when its laying on the table.
Yes, the fact that there is no American small phone with an e-ink screen is IMO proof that they basically want us to suffer.
It’s because they’re working on a foldable phone. And to make that work you need to phone half as thin first. This is not because they think people want thinner phones. It’s because they think people will want bigger screens and this will get them there.
Exactly my thought when I saw it. When I said smaller this isn’t what I meant!
Yes. In the era of slim pants.
Exactly. I'm still using my iPhone 13 mini and won't change it for something bigger. I wouldn't mind something a little smaller.
Back when I got my iPhone XR I immediately thought it was too thin, and got a case for it which added a non insignificant amount of thickness.
I’ve found the Pixel 8 and 9 Pro to be quite a reasonable size and they run GrapheneOS pretty nicely.
No, but if I recall correctly the mini didn't sell as well as they wanted.
Every time a new iPhone comes up people on hacker news pine for a new mini, which I understand. But everytime someone has to bring back up that the 12 and 13 minis were the worst selling sku two gens in a row, with at one point the 13 mini only attributing to 3% of 13 sales [1].
I'm sorry, but the market has spoken. And there's Android phones in that form factor if you really want it.
[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/21/iphone-13-mini-unpopula...
>Hahahaha LMAO. Here's your upvote my friend.
Back to reality, Apple sells close to 200 billion worth of iPhones per year, so yeah, maybe they know what they're doing?
If you’ve been following the rumour mill and also understand Tim “zero waste” Cook’s MO of reusing parts in multiple models, this whole thing makes a lot more sense when you realise they’re going to release a folding iPhone next year, and it’ll be the thickness of two Airs.
(side note) And the folding phone will be a "Apple First".
I wonder if they still still have a stupid camera notch on the device. They is no point (to me) have a thin phone even you end up having a 5mm notch the size of your phone
Reusing parts for them, massive piles of software-bricked e-waste for us.
“Thinnest” should be measured by the thickest slice for a given dimension.
I have an iPhone 11 which also has a camera bump and the experience of typing while the phone is on a flat surface is laughably annoying. For a company that prides itself on design aesthetics, it is honestly an embarrassing miss.
Genuinely curious: why do you often find yourself typing on the phone resting on a flat surface? I can’t think of a single time where that’s been the best way to handle my device.
Just do not understand the market for this one. The current size of phones is a solved problem. Nobody is asking for these things to be thinner. Most people use cases and are happy to add some thickness for battery life. Besides, the camera "plateau" makes it all futile.
I would love a lighter phone. If I chase after kids at the park, the thing is banging around like a lead weight in my pockets.
Thinner phones are aesthetically pleasing and feel nice to hold. I can keep a battery pack nearby for emergencies
I’m asking for thinner
What do you need battery life for?
Aren’t you in your house or office or car near a charger most of the day?
Do you spend 90% of your waking day in the middle of an open field far from any sort of charging capabilities?
Why would I add more weight to a phone so I don’t have to put it on the charging MagSafe puck that is inches away from me at all times
Since they aren't going to offer the smaller profile it seems that at least some segment of people want, and they don't have any new ideas to innovate on, they have to release something in order to maintain "growth" - which we all know must happen on schedule.
i hardly use my phone. it mostly sits in my hip pack. i'm extremely interested in the Air. the thinness means it takes up less space in there, which is very much appreciated. since they won't make another mini, this is the next best alternative. i'm also thrilled about having all-Apple silicon down to the cellular radios. more power-efficient and faster updates when improvements to cellular capabilities come out. very exciting.
the small battery won't affect me much. web browsing is the most demanding workload on my phone, which is not a problem on this a19 soc unlike the 13 mini whose soc struggles to keep up. i also charge my phone every night before i go to sleep and these phones do a great job at not draining overnight.
I'm actually curious about this one. Something that feels more seamless in my pocket, however like you mentioned, it would require for me to not use a case, which is something I might do.
I'm in the market for this
I've been hoping for Apple to return to "thin" and it's nice that they're trying. I don't know whether I would buy this, but my current iPhone 14 Pro feels like a brick — thick stainless steel
When I go for a run, it's uncomfortable to have in a pocket depending on what running clothes I am wearing. The heaviness makes it feel far more likely to break all the times I have dropped it (and I have dropped it many times, without a case)
See my other comment. It’s a necessary feature of foldable iPhones. First you get them then, then you release a foldable phone.
iphones are also a fashion accessory. lots of people will buy it for its distinctiveness
Wow, a phone with a battery that's so bad, they're selling an extra one to strap to the back of it, on launch day... The most innovative thing that Apple has done recently is figuring out how to have their CEO deliver a gift wrapped gold bar to the president. [1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbEsY-YpF1E&t=133s
If you check the actual specs, the Air’s battery life is the same 27 hours as the 16Pro. That’s pretty good for such a thin device. Obviously 27 hours is an optimistic estimate but to match the 16Pro means that the Air battery isn’t actually bad.
They likely offer the battery pack to make people feel more comfortable who don’t ready the specs but just make an assumption based on looks.
"this box was made in California"
WOW. You managed to make a cardboard box without using Chinese factories! Very impressive, Tim Apple!!
man that is depressing
It still has 6.5 inch display and the camera sticks out like a sore thumb. Where's a 5 inch display normal thickness phone?
> Where's a 5 inch display
When companies try smaller phones, like the iPhone 13 mini, they don't seem to sell very well. So the companies stop making them.
I'm also curious who the market is for a thinner phone. I imagine pockets on some clothes women commonly wear might work better with a thinner phone, but those pockets are almost always too small in other dimensions to actually hold the phone
So there's one feature the Air is missing according to a deep dive of the Compare sheet (https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/): The Air does not support mmWave cellular connectivity, while the other models (and previous models going back awhile) do support it.
That is...weird? Why would the Air's design prevent that?
The mmWave functionality requires a glass section on the frame as it can't pass through metals. They've redesigned this on the 17 Pro[1], but likely didn't find a way to integrate into the Air's design.
1. https://9to5mac.com/2025/09/09/iphone-17-pro-mmwave-glass-cu...The C1 modem didn't support mmWave and I assume it's the same case with the C1X.
I’d guess they are trying to limit power draw given the smaller battery. It’s a trade off.
What does that mean in practice?
I'd be paranoid all the time about breaking it by accidentally sitting on it. Thinner just means it won't have as much strength to resist being bent into an ass-shaped curve, right?
i'm sure most people reacted like you in focus groups. I dont know how many times they said "its our most durable phone" and "its so strong" etc. Got to be a way to directly counter this first impression.
That’s what Apple care is for.
iPhone Cup is coming out next year, pre-curved.
it's titanium, which is quite rigid compared to aluminum
This reminds me of Nokia's glory days around the turn of the millennium, when the mobile phone's essential functionality was well established and they excelled at packaging the same thing into ever-smaller cases made of ever-fancier metals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_8850/8890
The Motorola Razr of course was part of this trend too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Razr_V3
I actually sold my Nakamichi cassette deck to afford the NOKIA Communicator back then. The OS was problematic and couldn’t deliver the functionality that I expected. I ended up switching to a Palm or Handspring device, can't remember which, and stuck with a Nokia monochrome phone until the iPhone came along and changed everything.
Initial reactions are negative, so I predict this will be a hit.
like Apple Vision Pro?
Can't be just me who feels underwhelmed by the announcements yesterday? I can't imagine why they prioritise making thinner iPhones at the expense of longer battery life.
Around 2000-2005 there was a race for the smallest phone with ludicrously small displays. I believe Nokia was kind of leading and “winning” the race. Then blackberry and iPhone reversed trajectory and suddenly bigger was better, and Nokia died out.
I think we are on the same path here, thinner is not what I want. I want a powerhouse that can run AI for at least 48 hours on the worst conditions, a week at least in an ideal scenario.
My memory is from around 1998-1999 when I did some research to buy my first phone. From memory, I think that at that point Ericsson was winning that race in the more affordable end of the market, with models that I remember being smaller than Nokia models from the same time, such as:
* https://www.gsmarena.com/ericsson_pf_768-108.php
* https://www.gsmarena.com/ericsson_t10s-115.php
* https://www.gsmarena.com/ericsson_gf_788e-110.php
And Motorola had the smallest/lightest phones at the premium end of the market, with the StarTAC line.
* https://www.gsmarena.com/ericsson_gf_788e-110.php
* https://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_startac_85-74.php
In the end I realised that size was not the most important factor for me so instead I got a Motorola 8700 [1] which I didn't enjoy using, then sold it shortly after to get a Nokia 5110 [2] which I liked very much.
[1] https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co80944...
[2] https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5110-7.php
You want a phone that can run an LLM for a week uninterrupted? Wouldn't that weigh like 4 lbs and require a backpack to carry around?
Somehow I don't think you're the demographic Apple is interested in.
Well both of the Pro models increased their battery life. Apple isn't going just one way.
Who actually wants a thinner iPhone?
I specifically want an iPhone with less mass.
I view my phone primarily as something I'm obligated to carry on myself at all times to function in modern society. The easier it is to carry the better. When I need to upgrade my phone, I'll always choose the smallest iPhone by weight.
Right, thinness doesn't help with anything. I want smaller width and height (i.e., a iPhone 17 mini) so that the phone will fit better in my jeans pocket.
Thinner makes sense if it's consistently thin. I don't get what's the value of thinner with a giant bulge.
> Who actually wants a thinner iPhone?
I'm considering it. I'm not particularly married to the thinness. But I like the lightness.
I'm not an avid photographer. And I don't put a case on my phones. The only real tradeoffs I need to look into is processing and battery life.
It's half a folding phone.. they did the R&D, might as well offer it as a halo product.
I do, I've been waiting for thinner iPhones to retire my iPhone 11.
i'd take a phone 5 times thicker if it meant i got a week of battery life instead of a 5 hours
People who want to show off that they have the latest iPhone
A lot of people who put their phone in their pockets do.
I'd like to hold it, it seems like it might be more one-hand grippable in this form factor.
Supermodels who wear really tight jeans. We care about minority here sir.
I'm going to put a chunky Otterbox case around it no matter what.
I want it smaller. iPhone mini was the best.
Not me, I was hopping for a folding iPhone
everyone.
I would prefer my phone to be operable by one hand.
But you can't fit as many ads and/or cookie banners on a smaller screen. The tech treadmill requires those things, so here we are.
Thats what Steve always wanted
I have an iPhone 16 pro max, I’m five four with I assume smaller than average hands for a male and I have no problem using my iPhone one handed
The most annoying thing about handling my 12 Pro Max one-handed is the weight, with thickness being 2nd, and screen size being a distant 3rd.
I went from someone who had to have the latest phone on pre-order to someone who doesn't bother: this is the first time I'm considering a new phone release in years. I suspect many other people are in the same boat.
I'm just not sure if I'll miss 3 cameras too much.
It's a UI problem not an hardware one imo. Pretty much when iPhone came out UI research flattened and everything seems so standardized now, I only see gimmick stuff like liquid glass. For example, I don't see why a submit button cannot float near the thumb on the right or left side of the bottom of the device(could predict by checking device orientation)
When Samsung came out with its ultra-thin phone earlier this year, reviewers said you can't really tell from pictures but it really does feel different in-hand, and is substantially lighter. This one is slightly thinner than Samsung's
Not enough for me to upgrade, but I would consider this one if I were buying this year
The rumors are also strong for a folding iPhone next year, in which case this may just be them using the same thinness work they already had to do for that. A foldable would prompt me to upgrade
Every time I read an apple press release, I immediately bounce off because of the purposeful omission of the definite article when referring to their products; like "iPhone Air features ..." instead of "The iPhone Air features ...".
It's irrational, but it's like an uncanny valley via text for me.
Good looking phone though.
Yeah, I noticed this too when watching the keynote. It's interesting and must be deliberate, I wonder why they do this.
The camera bump looks like it's twice the thickness of the entire phone.
It probably aligns very well with any sensible case.
I've bought an iPhone 16 this year so it will be at least 4 years before I start thinking about a new one. Hopefully we'll have some sci-fi tech until then.
I was hoping for an Apple TV that can do AV1 decoding.
It is quite telling when they boast about the battery life of the other models, but the Air is just "All day battery life", and then immediately announce their magsafe power bank 20 seconds later in the broadcast!
If you're going to do a phone-width camera bump, at least make it flat so I can put my phone down without it wobbling. Apple's bump on a bump is the worst of both worlds.
A19 uses the 3nm process and its benchmarks look similiar to the A18. My two cents I would hold off to next version of the air/pro with the 2nm process and the A20 series chips.
Customers: we need better battery, no camera bump, better displays, more storage, ...
Apple: here's the thinnest phone ever
They did increase the RAM for the iPhone17 by 50% (8GB -> 12GB [sorry, there was no RAM bump, I was looking at the iPhone17 and iPhone17 Pro page and confused the 17Pro RAM for the 17 RAM amount]) and the 128GB storage option is gone, so the 256GB option is the minimum now, for the same price as the initial iPhone16.
Somehow the Apple customer base loves to be told what they should want.
Every time I hear "people/customers want it" I answer that I don't want it and immediately hear in response "but you are not a human/customer". I'm confused... I stopped asking.
It's late but I spent way too long looking at the top image wondering what the weird phone angles were on the left and right until I realised it said AIR
Same....I was like does this phone have a stand in the back? Stared at that picture for like 1 minute and gave up. :D
Same! Though it was some liquid glass distortion of the phone or something.
And then I stared at the line about "remarkable all‑day battery life" and wondered what is so remarkable about that. Anyway... "The new iPhone Air MagSafe Battery has a thin and light design that magnetically attaches to the back of iPhone Air to extend battery life during busier days." So you can always turn it into a normal thickness phone with normal battery life it seems.
I didn't get it until I read your comment. I simply gave up.
Same here, I got excited thinking it was a folding phone on the left
Aaaaahh so that’s what it is!
I thought it was foldable in a weird way..
lol Yeah they need to fix that. I thought it was some new kind of phone stand.
All I want is a 4-5 inch phone :( bring back the mini!
Small screen sizes will not allow Apple to sell you as much as they do now.
Because above all, the iPhone is a vending machine owned by Apple and paid for by you.
People get old. Old people cannot see small text. Big text requires bigger screen to fit.
One could argue that a lot of 50-ish people have pro max with iphone 5-ish screen estate.
Small screens ain’t gonna happen
minis didn't sell. Your wants are not mainstream enough :)
Technologically impressive, how thin they got it.
Since it costs $1000-$1400, I'm going to need a nice big thick ruggedized case around it.
AppleCare+ is really good IMO if you're interested in caseless. I can get my screen or back replaced same day for as little as $29. On my iPhone 17 I've broken the screen twice and gotten repairs done same day.
iPhones last killer feature was usbc. These are all good and appreciated upgrades for someone with no phone, but my wallet is happy none of it is really that interesting and enough to warrant an upgrade. Right now I don’t know what they could do to get me to want to. Folding? Even more zoom? Even more battery? Return of the headphone jack???? I won’t lie, a headphone jack might…
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple
Can I get regular thickness but twice the battery life instead? "All day battery life" is the bare minimum dressed up as a feature - I get at least two out of my cheap android.
Unless you can deliver multi-day battery, it's useless to provide anything more than all day battery. If the battery can only last 1.5 days for example, then the user is stuck trying to find a charge in the middle of the day. All day battery means they just need to charge overnight (which most users already do).
So basically: thinner, shinier, faster. Itэs impressive from an engineering standpoint but at what point does thinness stop being a feature and start being a liability? I feel like we’ve been here before with bendgate.
I thought this. I've had a previous phine with bending issues and I'd personally stay well clear of anything this thin.
I notice the release claims "our most durable iphone ever" - curious if this is actually true and whether there's any design to stop the risk of bending.
AAPL is down 1.3% on the news, while GOOGL is up 2%. Their phone offerings have diverged so dramatically with this last refresh cycle.
AAPL often drops after launch events. “Buy the rumor, sell the news.”
Maybe the Google stock was affected by this?
https://www.reuters.com/business/google-cloud-anticipates-le...
> Google Cloud revealed Tuesday it has lined up about $58 billion in new revenue over the next two years as it vies to become a more central component of the tech giant's future.
> The company said during its July earnings that the cloud division had surpassed a $50 billion annual revenue run rate. Google Cloud's backlog of non-recognized sales contracts is growing even faster than its revenue, unit chief Thomas Kurian told investors at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology conference.
Im a long time Apple person and in the last year I moved to Android just for the folding phone. It's just too good to pass honestly
Do you think Google stock is up because of this announcement? It's not like they generate most of their revenue from Pixel phones, or Android overall.
I don't feel like I need a thin phone. I need a smartphone which can last for a week after a single charge. From what I understand, the energy density in modern battery processes is enough to pack 100 Wh battery into a phone, but for some reason we are stuck with 20 Wh for years.
You wouldn't want that weight. Well, 99.5% of smartphone users wouldn't want that weight. Maybe you would.
I believe the counterargument here is that we've gotten used to phones being relatively thin, and people have learned to charge their phones every night anyway. Something about stated vs. true desires, just like with the Minis where people said they wanted smaller phones but then nobody bought them. I believe it might be a similar thing where people say they want thicker phones with big batteries but they won't actually buy them when they realize they will be noticeably thicker and heavier.
The Apple foldable is coming. There's no way they invested so much R&D for a thinner phone if they aren't looking to get into that market.
This. Absolutely this. Presumably the foldable flips back up and extends to just beneath the camera bump, hence most of the phone is effectively double the thinnest part of the iPhone air.
Yes, and everybody will think Apple invented it.
I understand the market "has spoken" but I feel like I'm on crazy pills when I put a ruler across my iPhone 13 mini and look at where the 6.5" mark is. No other dimension is relevant to me until we get this one under control.
Not an iPhone nor Apple user, but I feel like we're regressing on battery life. My old Moto G used to last a full week with single charge (yes, I'm a very light user: no social media, games etc.). My newer Google Pixel's battery, with its larger capacity, with the same usage pattern, lasts for 2 days if I'm lucky. That is to say, the normalized idling time for newer phones have grown significantly shorter.
Now, this Apple ad appears to be boasting as if battery that lasts single day is a generous offering. Perhaps it's adjusted for a heavy user. Still, I don't get the impression that we aren't getting actual improvements on battery life.
Iphone Air does not have LiDAR Scanner if it matters to anyone.
Does it has a screen ?
I don't really see the point of making phones so thin when the camera sticks out as much as much as the phone is thick. I would rather have a flat phone that is thicker
"a breakthrough design"
They copied pixel.
It really looks like a Pixel:
https://store.google.com/product/pixel_10_pro
To be fair, their announcements where close apart. There's a chance Pixel copied iPhone.
Edit: forgot which thread I’m on, yes the air looks much more like Pixel.
Copying pixel would have been great. They copied AND made it worse.
I wouldn’t in a million years buy a pixel, but their team deserves credit for making really beautiful hardware. IMO better than iPhone 16 Pro and MUCH better than iPhone 17 Pro.
I get the thinness. My current iPhone is perfectly thin enough on its own, but when you add a case… yeah, the whole package could stand to be thinner. Not sure if that is achieved given the bump.
I looked in the tech specs and found no mAh listed. Just video playback time. I find that incredibly sus.
Does anyone know it? Was it in announcement video?
Looks uncanny at that screen size, my only hope for a mini replacement is probably a reality where glasses make screen size irrelevant.
I feel like this is more of a tech demo than a product. It is impressive engineering, for sure, but you can pay $100 more for the Pro and get significantly more features and battery life.
> you can pay $100 more for the Pro and get significantly more features and battery life
Segmentation. More features aren't material if you don't use them. And plenty of people (not me) habitually charge their phones to the extent that carrying around extra battery just in case is sort of like having a 400-mile EV for grocery runs.
I hope they include instructions on holding it correctly ;p
Top tier comment!
> "This is MacBook Pro levels of compute in an iPhone, perfect for GPU-intensive AI workloads."
Am I just an old man screaming at cloud here or is it unnecessary for a phone to be focused on GPU intensive tasks ? Impressive as it is and all.
> iPhone Air features an eSIM-only design that saves space internally, helping enable the unbelievably light and thin form factor.
Also this is frustrating..
Phones are the main computing device for young people and hosted LLMs are eating the world right now. Not everyone will find a problem with this, but I am hoping for practical local LLMs sooner than later, and for maximum impact, they should also be able to run on phones. This amount of computing power in a phone is what could help make that happen.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION ON THIS MATTER
This announcement contains so many fake marketing words I can't help but read it in DJT's voice... Add Tim Apple's present and yeah, cool tech, not interested.
Recently got a iphone 16 pro to my mom. First thing i reacted on when opening the package was. Damm that is a thick phone. Compared to my S25 and older android phones i have the iphone 16 feel old and clunky, like from another era.
Since all components are near camera, how is the heat dissipation
I just can't imagine anyone wanting this? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but do people really want a thinner phone? I love my 16 Pro and plan to get the 17 Pro.
Definitely feel like thicker and longer battery is better. Heavier feels nice.
Saw another comment that said this will give Apple the opportunity to learn if people really want a thinner iPhone. I hope they learn that people don't. Curious to find out the answer.
Don't see much improvements that really matter to a common phone user. Battery, maybe?
Reminds me of Windows versions that came after Windows 7. Why don't people just stop doing new versions after the product has reached its saturation point?
The thinness of the letters in the title really accentuate the camera bump. For me it makes it looks like it's called APR and really draws attention to a design feature I dislike, having said that I know that some people find camera bumps a positive feature.
We will have Silicon Carbon battery that has 2x energy density of normal lithium battery shipping on Smartphone later this year. Apple is very slow in new battery technology adoption, but one could imagine in a few years time this iPhone Air will have double the battery life.
They'll just use the improved battery density to make it wafer thin (with a big camera bump).
Which will mean they remove all buttons and connectors making it annoying as hell.
But it'll be cool.
> in a few years time this iPhone Air will have double the battery life
So, we can buy this iPhone Air in a few years!
This will be the replacement for my iPhone 13 mini. Although I wish they would make another mini instead.
I wonder if the thinner profile will make it more comfortable in smaller hands (both in terms of reach and center-of-gravity), but I'm skeptical.
Ditto. This adds 10.5mm of width, but shaves 4mm of depth (2mm on each side, as measured when holding in one hand). So the net increase is only 6mm. I won't be pre-ordering one of these, since I want to feel it in-store prior to purchasing.
The weight is also significantly (in percentage terms) greater.
Funny how everyone agrees here after the event that it's suddenly GOOD that Apple didn't present a folding phone.
After more than a decade it's still an odd experience to observe how the market is self-adjusting to match Apple's portfolio...
Would be interesting to see if the iPhone Air isn't already a Polymer OLED panel, as a supply-chain ramp-up for a foldable design...
Related ongoing threads:
Compare the New iPhone Models - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45186294 - Sept 2025 (95 comments)
iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45186044 - Sept 2025 (42 comments)
Apple Debuts iPhone 17 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45186023 - Sept 2025 (104 comments)
I half-expected them to have removed the charging port with how thin it was, but looking at the specs it's (thankfully) still there.
USB 2.0 speed only is a little disappointing but it's not the only high-end device not to have faster speeds.
I'm not an Apple user but from an engineering perspective it's hard not to be impressed by the levels of miniaturization involved.
What do you use USB for? Most likely your use cases are now classified “pro/expert”, and the Air isn’t focused on that segment.
Anyone else unable to load the page in firefox mobile? It starts loading and then either crashes the tab or force-closes itself
Yep, me too
https://archive.is/1MQJf
I wish they could just make a phone that has 3 or 4 day battery life. I never understood this obsession with thickness, even the normal iPhone is too thin to properly hold without a case.
I completely agree with this; in practice I have to charge my iPhone in the daytime to make it through the day (probably not when it was new). It would be great to have it go multi day for the days I don’t/cant do an overnight charge.
"iPhone Air will be available in four gorgeous finishes"
Didn't the hype train around the word "gorgeous" for software run its course? To me its an immediate turn.
Why does no one make flat back in phones today? everyone just accepted ugly design...
I am constantly reminded how far away I am from the median phone buyer.
I've yet to notice a substantive difference between my current Moto g 5g, which cost ~150 USD and my previous phone, a Pixel 5a which cost ~450 USD. I balked at the price of the pixel at the time, but figured that's just the price of admission these days. It is now useless since the screen/mobo failed soon after I switched. After it was obsoleted, I just opted for the cheap Moto and will probably never spend more than 200 USD on a phone again.
If you're on here, you probably work in tech, and if you work in tech, you're probably pretty affluent, which means you don't need to signal that you're affluent.
They introduced N1 network chip. I noticed "thread" technology along with wifi and bluetooth. Tbh, it's first time I heard of this tech. Could anyone enlighten me what this "thread" wireless technology is and its impact?
What is Thread? https://www.theverge.com/23165855/thread-smart-home-protocol...
What is Matter over Thread? https://www.theverge.com/22832127/matter-smart-home-products...
How to set up Matter over Thread? https://www.theverge.com/23823041/matter-thread-device-setup...
This is an interesting move. Extend the moat. At the same time I'm considering hard wiring a powerbank to my phone so it will have a month of stand-by time.
If this thinnest iphone air has 27 hours of video playback, why does the regular iphone 17, which looks twice as thick only has 30 hours? At this point, I just want long battery life. Like an "all-week" battery life would be a nice start.
they are mostly likely using a higher density battery in the air, at least that's what the rumors suggest
> iPhone Air features an eSIM-only design that saves space internally, helping enable the unbelievably light and thin form factor.
I've only ever had phones with at least one (regular/physical) eSIM, and a 'slot' for an eSIM for travel.
What are the pros/cons of only eSIMs?
Edit: I'm not questioning eSIMs, which I know can be handy: my iPhone SE3 is physical+eSIM. I'm curious about no physical SIM. If you can support 1-eSIM+physical is it a big deal to go to >1-eSIM+physical?
I have an only esim since the iPhone 11 was released.
Pros:
- Super easy to get esims while traveling. e.g. in Mexico i downloaded an app while still in the airport and paid $5 with apple pay and instantly activated a 1 month esim.
- You can have multiple esimss. With physical sims you are limited to the physical number of sim slots on your phone, usually 1 or at most 2. With esim there is no such restriction.
- More secure. esims can't be cloned (e.g. sim swapping attack) or simply removed from a stolen phone like physical sims.
Cons:
- If you get a new phone, you cant just pop your physical sim in. You need to go through your provider to transfer, which requires calling them and verifying your identity.
I actually dont see this as a con really, I see this as a security benefit. Since I only get a new phone every 3-4 years, the 20 min on the phone it takes to transfer is not a significant burden.
When they first introduced eSIM only on the 13 iirc, not every country had that rolled out especially with old telcos in South America so if you travelled there for work or family you were completely shut out and it means buying a burner. I am not sure how that has progressed in the past 4 years but hopefully more telcos adopt it. The downside is no real portability of cheap plans using regular sim cards.
Depending where you are in the world some banking apps only work with phones that have physical sim cards.
You can’t swap them easily between phones.
If you break your phone, you may lose access to the number until you return to your home country.
Other than that, it’s the same.
For most people esim is better
Not sure, but my provider don't do eSIM so I guess I can't get one.
SIM cards are huge. Even the smallest form factor is a pretty large component. It has to be accessible from the exterior of the device and often has an ejection method of some kind. Getting rid of it is huge from a form factor standpoint.
I am sure there are downsides to eSIM but particularly for the average consumer who gets a SIM in their new phone and never changes it... there is probably zero difference.
fwiw, I dropped my e-sim iphone in the water.
I asked my provider to issue a new e-sim that I could use in another phone, but it asked me to verify my id by sending me a text message I couldn't receive because I didn't have a phone.
I couldn't buy a new phone without a new sim, because I had forgotten the pin of the card I needed to use, and the pin was visible on a website that was protected with 2FA.
So I bought a physical sim card from my provider shop (using my last physical 10 euros), then went to a used iphone reseller, who let me setup the phone before paying, so that I could use the phone to actually pay for it.
It was not fun
eSIM is essentially a client-server protocol for provisioning secrets into an embedded SIM (whether discrete chip soldered on the mainboard or emulated by the modem).
The QR code you get when you purchase an eSIM is merely an access token to initiate the provisioning process. Some carriers may make these single-use, or attach extra restrictions such as fees if you want to get a new one, or restrictions they themselves don't know about like that you must be on an IP from your carrier's home country to reach the provisioning server (good luck debugging that if you're not already aware of it - and no, on-device VPNs won't save you as the OS will not use your VPN for this traffic).
Even the mechanism that allows you to move an eSIM from one iPhone to another requires carrier involvement, which they have to support (internally I don't believe it moves anything, instead merely requesting a new SM-DP code in the background and sending that to the new phone). It doesn't work for all carriers.
Oh and you already need to have some existing IP connection to provision the eSIM in the first place, so first-time provisioning is tricky. I'm sure there is a workaround for it, but again carrier support varies.
TLDR: it allows the carrier to interfere when provisioning or moving the eSIM which carriers can and do take advantage to make the process more costly/painful and discourage easily using alternative carriers.
FWIW, I'm coming from an iPhone 12 and was dazzled by the Air.
This is cool but what I really want is another iPhone Mini. I got tiny hands, phones are way too big for me.
I think the Air makes a lot more sense through the lens of a foldable iPhone.
Even for Apple, there are a significant amount of challenges in building a best-in-class foldable. Supply chain, manufacturing, hardware design, software. Apple is well known for planning ahead; breaking down problems by tackling some in an Air model first seems in line with how they operate.
The price difference really drives this home. It’s only $100 difference between a Pro and an Air. By the time you buy the perhaps-essential battery pack it’s the same price.
I don’t expect this model to continue more than a year or two, it’s a niche option only there to set the stage for a foldable that will take its place.
As much as I want this to succeed because Apple makes great products, I don't know who asked for it. People have voted unanimously with their wallets that bigger screens with longer battery life is what they want. The trend to thin down phones stopped around iPhone 8 or so, when the big screen was introduced. Since then we have seen many cycles where the phones got bulkier with larger batteries and screens. No one complained.
I have Samsung S25 Edge which is essentially same thickness (5.8mm) the biggest difference is weight, phone feels really light compared to my old phone.
The most annoying thing on the phone is wobbling when it is on flat surface thanks to lenses sticking out.
Battery life is alright. I can get 2-3 days of life from it with light use. If I am using it a little bit more, then it is barely one day of battery life.
And compared to iPhone Air it has real SIM slot.
Yep, weight matters a lot more.
For this they could engineer a good plastic but it wouldn't sell because it wouldn't feel "premium" enough. So instead, we get nonsense like that. And it suits them well because the thing is that much more likely to break so they get more chances to have the customer pay for repair or phone change.
Win-Win for them, lose-lose for the customer, basically everything Apple is about currently.
Long time apple fanboy. I've watched most of these unveilings for the past 20 years. The new phones are impressive. But it was all speeds and feeds. The examples felt so wrong. The women dancing while on the phone. The guy running with while recording. The person needing translation to buy roses? None of those feel grounded in reality. It's like they are building tech for made up in corporate conference room use cases.
Live translation u/i feels like a significant upgrade for that specific product, especially if you are in a dense area with different types of speakers. It feels like a way better MVP than Meta Glasses that are only meant to do troll videos on tiktok or youtube. The examples they trotted out feel ridiculous but that's because they have been approved by their internal systems.
Look at the age of the people running Apple (management up to the board) vs other tech companies.
When you work at apple this (and $3000 glasses) is your reality.
> It's like they are building tech for made up in corporate conference room use cases.
Totally felt the same during the live-translation demo, when these two casual business folks were talking about "the client will love the new strategy". Dystopian corporate gibberish.
I want the iPhone square, where the phone is as thick as the camera bulge so I can put it down on a table.
You joke, but this is basically what a foldable iPhone will be (though there will undoubtedly still be a camera bump...).
I really don't want the liquid display so I guess this means i can't update my iPhone until they give us a way to permanently disable this.
I want a version of this where the camera is flush with the surface of the phone. I understand and accept that this means the camera will be worse.
I don't get why HN is so negative, I would not be surprised if this is one of their best selling phones in years
I don't think many people read the link where it says the Air has 27 hours of video playback compared to the 33 hours of the iPhone 17 Pro.
I think people are assuming it lasts 6 hours just because they sell a magsafe battery pack.
It's barely much a trade-off at all for a phone that has the norm of daily charging.
Can anyone answer the important question? Can I take a big square photo with the whole of that big square front sensor?
At least air is titanium.
Pro returning back to aluminum is very-very bad for durability.
Aluminium is very soft: it just deforms to a splash on every drop.
I really hope they go back to steel.
Steel is too heavy. As they pointed out aluminum is much better at dissipating heat than titanium. Shooting video has always heated phones up. A lot of the video features were aimed directly at actual professional video work so I’m not surprised if preventing throttling was a key goal. Game performance will come along for the ride as well.
They also said that this was the first unibody iPhone. Can titanium be made the same way? The unibody MacBooks are really nice though I’m not sure if the same rigidity issues are at play in such small devices.
They’re running out of ways to innovate across all of their product lines. Introducing yet another product size is the easiest way for them to make it look like the iPhone is still innovating. I’m sure there will eventually be an Apple Watch Air as well as iPad Pro Max/Ultra too.
I'm concerned about HN database storage capacity, so here's a simple way to think about this. If you're interested, consider buying it. If it's not for you, no need to argue a whole lot. Plenty of other topics worthy of discussion. XD
Do they use compression?
No need to worry, tech bros got enough cash for storage.
Bigger, less featured, and more expensive than the iPhone 17… I don’t get it
They really know how to get your consumer juices flowing
Aside from Macs for development I've never been an iPhone person but I'm seeing this like ooh. But no I'm good with my $160 motorolla android phone, no shade against this phone, good enough for my needs.
I do wish Android phones had lidar
I wonder if this one bends in your pocket[1]. I'd much rather have the 'iphone thicc' which can be 10mm thick if it fits easily in my hand :-)
[1] https://qz.com/1288272/bendgate-was-real-apple-knew-the-ipho...
I remember Matt Honan's ridiculou8s write-up in Wired magazine when he was Editor, complaining about getting in a taxi with the iPhone 6 in his back pocket and it bending. I'm sure we will see more of that.
That was 10 years ago. The stability has improved massively. What was the last phone that bent under normal circumstances?
Really?! It’s 2025 and this is what they saw as important. We need repairable tech not this peanut butter and jelly nonsense that’ll be in the trash heap literal months from now. Feels like we’re back to the old Performa, Centris and Quadra era of rolling our more and more barely differentiated products u til folks loose track of what to buy. Have you been in an Apple Store recently, it’s starting to feel pretty cluttered.
Another data point, Googles own phone ad right now is literally along the lines of ‘feel like your existing phone never changes’, clearly a dig at Apple’s product atrophy.
The Google Ad states; “If it feels like your phone hasn’t change in years, .. maybe it’s time to change your phone.. Google Pixel 10 Pro”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tmjqHLLHruA
I'm always impressed how Apple can name so many products with so few words. Recycling Mac[Book] / Pad / Pod, Air, Pro, and 'i' (hardly even a word) gives you basically their whole product lineup. iPad Pro, MacBook Air, AirPods, iPhone Air, iMac Pro. AirTag must be the only one that has a unique word in it.
I don't get the effort of reaching that thickness and then bumping that monster at the top. It will unbalance the phone for sure. I mean there must be a consumer base that would buy an ultra light smartphone without the back camera so to make it consistently thin? I'd buy it
Ad has nothing for me. I want to know more about it's satellite reception, it's physical limits (actual specifications with units too much to ask?), it's hardware security improvements, how many GB of storage, and the final cost.
https://www.apple.com/iphone-air/specs/
This might be an unpopular opinion but does anyone else think that phones are now targeted towards teenagers and young adults and not the general crowd anymore ? I feel Apple has completely made their phones a social tool and not a technology innovation product. Camera, colors and the ability to distinguish your phone from others in selfies (another social feature) and in public is what it seems to be about. Gaming on the phone is another aspect. The phones look different each year (on purpose) and they are increasingly targeted towards young adults who can spend 1000$ of their savings all year towards just looking cool on social media with better pictures and a social profile. I noticed this transition around iPhone X era where design language lost meaning as long as they could compete in the social media world. I feel Instagram and TikTok should thank apple for becoming more social.
I really like the 15 camera I have and feels really good for a casual photo person. I feel that the 16e is more than enough for 99% of those not into social media. Like the phone without social media is just keeping in touch with close friends and family and occasionally taking pictures and making payments. And once in a while a few apps that help you track something like maps or health apps.
The 16e feels like a really enough phone if you don't want to get into the rat race.
Here’s an actual hot take compared to the sentiment in this discussion: this will be the best selling iPhone ever.
Specs wise sure, I’d also love a bigger battery than it being thin*. But the iPhone has been an unbelievable fashion statement, and this insanely sexy iPhone will be the strongest yet.
I’m pretty sure when it comes out, people will actually hold it in their hands and the sentiment will turn. Not talking to you tech nerds, but for the other 99% of the world.
I would be surprised, but not very surprised.
I think the price point above the 17 and close to the 17 Pro gives it less appeal, but I guess it does make it more "premium" too.
I definitely don't think you're out of left field.
I remember this take when the iPhone X came out, which incidentally also felt like the first year (here in the US) where Apple was truly detested, publicly. Instagram and Twitter were chock-full of memes like "999x Kinder Chocolate or 1x iPhone X?" and the notch/design overhaul met a pretty lukewarm reception. The agony of yearly upgrades really set in, then.
It's not impossible for this to take off, but I won't hold my breath. It's a small gamble that could go either way.
there is only one target audience for this model and is users that already carry the iPhone without case.
I don't need a thinner phone. I need a phone that can use a physical SIM card, has a physical keyboard (something like the N900), and a 3.5mm headphone jack... I'll just skip on that overpriced piece of junk.
The first thing I do after opening this page (or any other phone announcement) on Hacker News is press cmd+f and search for "headphone". Turns out not many people care about this anymore.
“A new titanium USB-C port is 3D-printed to be thinner and stronger, fitting into the slim design while using 33 percent less material than a conventional forging process.”
Super fun. Titanium printing
> iPhone Air is easy to use outside with 3000 nits peak outdoor brightness
This will be a nice upgrade for bi / motor - cyclists who like to mount their phone / google maps on their handlebars!
Don’t put your iPhone on your motorcycle handlebars if you value the camera: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102175
I have the largest version of the iPhone 16 and it isn't that big. When I first upgraded the size difference was very noticeable, but that faded pretty quickly. It is annoying that it fits into my front pocket when turned diagonally.
That's the iPhone I was waiting for. I love mu iPhone 14 pro but despise its heft. My previous iPhone was iPhone 6s and when I see it in the drawer and take it in my hand I feel nostalgic for that age when the phone wasn't so in your face with the wight and the tick feel in my pocket.
The iPhone 17 air is 146 g vs the iPhone 16 at 170 g. I don't think you're going to notice the 25g weight saving in your pocket.
> 5.6mm
Fiiiinally something thinner than X820 !
https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_x820-1556.php
>> impossibly thin and light design
Thin, except for the top part.
I mean, who doesn't like big on top and thin everywhere else?
> fantastic all-day battery life
LOL; fantastic would be several days.
all-day is better than gone by late afternoon.
I don’t care about how thin the phone is. Let me replace the battery without risking shattering all the glass on the thing.
There's a small potential for enthusiasts to potentially make an aftermarket shell that sits flush and uses the space for an additional battery. Won't be cost-effective nor mass market but people have done crazier things (like add USB-C support to Lightning phones) before.
I wasn't asking for my phone to be thinner. I was asking for my phone to be SMALLER. In the other two dimensions...
This chassis would be perfect for the 2nm chips next year
They keep shrinking in the wrong dimentions.
I feel like Apple hit the diminishing (stopping?) returns on thinness years and years ago. Who cares?
The thin phone is engineering prep for Apple Vision Air.
It really does feel like there is a long term strategy with miniaturization and functional integration.
The power of a MacBook Pro in the bump of a phone, the rest is just battery, screen, antennas and heat dissipation. What other form factors are they working towards?
Software is eating hardware. I mean, who needs a phone or a laptop if they can be virtualized from a headset? Maybe the phone in the pocket becomes just a folding keyboard + battery combo.
Welcome back Droid X
iPhone 6 is where they peeked.
iPhone SE 1st edition was my peak iPhone. Everything else has been downhill.
Design-wise it's iPhone 4 for me. It still feels great to hold. I wish the Pro models went back to this all-flat design, and let the other models worry about thinness.
I want an all-screen iPod gen 2-4 as a phone.
It was the 4 / 4S for me. Perfect size.
this is basically a modern iPhone 6 plus, so I guess they agree with you
iPhone 3GS was peak.
Why do we need thinner and thinner phones?
Hot take: iPhone Air isn't about making phones lighter, but to justify making their other models heavier.
iPhone Air is 165g.
The new iPhone Pro 17 is 204g but the 15 Pro was only 187g. iPhone 17 is 7g more than the iPhone 16 which was 170g (only 5g heavier than the new Air).
Their pricing ladding places the Air above the regular 17 and below the 17 Pro.
If Apple didn't make the Air, then the 17 family would have been Apples "Heaviest range of iPhones they have every made".
That said, I am very happy about how Apple are adding more battery to all their phones - which might be were the extra weight is coming from.
Hot take
"Hot takes" are for Reddit.
People on HN are expected to think before they respond.
Anyone know if this has a silicon-carbon battery? The spec sheet just says “lithium ion”, which doesn’t answer the question.
What exactly is their strategy with preventing cannibalizing sales between the Air and the Pro Max? This release makes no sense.
Is this a foldable prototype. Will the iPhone foldable be 2 iphone Airs joined together?
If you flip one upside down and attach it to another one, you end up with a stable phone that has twice the battery life.
Why do we measure devices at their thinnest part rather than at their thickest part
It's been at least 6 phones since anybody wanted it thinner.
Titanium? I thought they’d learned that lesson with the Powerbook G4.
is it me or does it look like the pixel 9/10
Thin phone, giant screen. How bout thick phone, tiny screen. Call it iPhone Earth
Price isn't too bad, esp now that the Pixel 10 is expensive, the base iphone is the same price for more storage which is kinda unexpected for Apple!
My old 13 pro is quite thin and uncomfortable to hold in hand without a case. Why would someone push so hard for a thinner phone? Boosting about extra battery if SIM slot is removed, while doing insane over-engineering to shave a few millimeters is quite a tell.
I know Apple is super successful and will have another great set of quarters, but this is quite disappointing.
My first thought was, “thinner and lighter? Apple has totally run out of ideas.”
> Why would someone push so hard for a thinner phone?
They have to "inovate" somewhere. The suckers won't pay hundreds of dollars for the same crap over and over again. They tried to "inovate" the GUI, it was a disaster. Now they turned to HW.
I have the 13 pro. I personally find it quite heavy (quite a thwack when you drop it) or just tension when you wear shorts for example. That said, I have zero interest in this phone.
Lateral move. shrugs
I'd been more excited if they brought back the 3.5 mm audio jack.
Idk why they keep putting camera bumps. Can't they make it flat ...
One of these that has no camera would be cool. Alternately, a thicker phone with more battery and no camera bump. Either would be fine.
This is the worst of both worlds.
Once you start rocking case accessories, profile of phones can definitely get thinner, i.e. phone loops, those suction cups. I'm fine with going thinner with the trend and I think we're going to get some pretty slick phone cases/accessories that makes actual thinner flusher carrying profile.
At the end of the day, I want future phones to be a A4 piece of paper that I can fold up like ... a piece of paper. If it means dumping stupid billions to shave sub millimeters of generations... then I guess that's the price to pay.
Looks as thin as the zfold 7 but without the inner display.
I just want to know how much it weighs.
Still looking for a phone as light as the Pixel 5 at 151 grams
It says 165g. It's lighter than the base model.
They should have offered a no-camera version.
This is becoming comical. iPhone Air only supports USB 2 speeds. Seriously? Also iPhone Pro only comes with USB 3 speeds while amplifying ProRes RAW support...
I've never transferred data over a wire to or from my iPhone, interesting that this is important for some use cases.
I don't think I have ever plugged in my phone, like at all, ever, and it's not even an iPhone. And if I want to get any photos/videos I made with it, they are just in Google photos?
Like I get there are some people who maybe use the thing as an actual camera and they suddenly need to download tens if not hundreds of gigabytes of media off the phone but like.....I guess it's just not the phone for them? And like you said the Pro supports USB3 speeds so what's the issue? 5gbps is really not fast enough?
Hopefully it doesn't morph to Aang: the Air bend er
It's also (I'm assuming) completely impossible to repair.
why the air is not 17?
what about next year will we get air 2 or air 2026 like the iPads?
I want a smaller phone, not a thinner phone.
Cools pics! They should show it behind a pencil for scale.
Pretty excited about this one. The amount of tech went into this is obviously insane. Happy to see the company is still the driver of innovation. I bet we'll see more slim phones coming up next months from other vendors.
When they do a folding phone next, the thinness will have functional value.
Apple already released a folding phone, the iPhone 6 Plus!
Reminds me of pixel phones, but more rounded, and more protuberant.
Just give me a phone without the stupid camera bump.
By purchasing a new iPhone you are directly contributing to the humanitarian crisis in the Congo. A thin phone won’t change your life but it might be responsible for a life being lost.
It uses 100% recycled cobalt.
https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/iphone/iPhone...
Booo bring back the 4" iPhone SE
Thousands of words to just tell me that nothing changed
“It’s our most revolutionary nothing changed in the history of iPhone.”
This is 100% going to bend, right?
i was on the fence getting this but I am definitely not after watching this. Probably s26u when it comes out in Jan
can they just make it flat? seriously
Are we in 2012, who’s asking for thinner phones?
Let me know when I can replace the battery. Of course that’ll ruin the current business model because it’ll be even more apparent how rarely we’ll need to upgrade these things.
I feel like "are we in 2012, who's asking to replace their phone battery?" would equally reflect the real world.
I'd say the vast majority of people don't actually care about either.
Too expensive.
Their obsession with camera bumps has left them blind to good design, this thing is a grotesque, ugly monster
Since the iPhone 5, no phone sits steady on a flat surface anymore, wich is sad
At this point I am like “fuck (perception of) privacy!”. I will just buy the 9a, or Pixel 10a if one releases by the time I switch from my (already large) iPhone 14. At least I won’t have to deal with the never ending shenanigans, the crazy prices, and the very real possibility that if there’s a damage it might be cheaper to buy a new one (in warranty).
Now take all of that manufacturing brilliance and, keeping the volume the same, turn it into a small thick phone which will fit in my pocket and hand. Won't need a camera bump
Mini phones please. Thickness is not a problem, solved 10 years ago.
I wish for the day Apple create a true slick Iphone Air … without a protuberance
TBH, this phone looks crap. I'm sure SJ would have hated the form factor.
I just wanted a folding iPhone.
It may still bend! We'll see how much this Titanium 'exceeds expectations', eyeroll.gif
I guess Apple finally listened to all the people saying they want a smaller phone, and totally misunderstood what that meant
The problem is that these people are very loud on the internet but sales for small phones are abysmal.
The laptop class (myself included) just don't understand. A huge portion of the world only has 1 computer and it's their phone. They rely on it for work, entertainment, and connectivity. They don't have a laptop where they can do all these things on whenever they want. Their phone is it. They want a big screen phone. It's no surprise that every time Apple made the screen bigger, it sold better.
I loved my 13 Mini but I understand why Apple has given up on it. It was a very good effort. They tried. Didn't sell. Maybe a foldable can solve this problem for both sides.
My wife has a 13 mini and is sad she'll have to go to a larger phone.
Yeah I was really hoping for the phone to be smaller in different dimensions. Thinness is the least important of them.
It's a vocal minority on the internet which also owns a lots of other computing devices. I'm one.
IMHO most people in the real world increasingly use their smartphone as their primary computer and want a big screen.
I don’t like gigantic phones but smaller phones are incredibly hard to type for me
The Air is going to be very popular.
You wouldn't sell any smart watches if you could actually use the phone with your hand.
looks like my iPhone SE 2nd gen will need to survive a 6th year lmao
No, Apple's been obsessed with thin & light for decades. Only with Apple Silicon did that actually result in usable devices.
"all the people" do not exist. Apple is obviously good for building small devices. They have built multiple of them, explicitly, against the direction the market was going.
If "all the people" wanted these phones, they would still exist.
They nailed it. Big horizontal dimensions so it’s hard to hold in one hand (yes, I realize that many users want this, but many users don’t want this), a big thick camera so it doesn’t actually fit well in slim pockets (but lots of young people seem to like their phone sticking out of their pocket?!), and super thin everywhere else so a high capacity battery doesn’t fit. Nice job!
Seriously, Apple has not attempted a narrow high-end phone since the iPhone 5. The 12 and 13 minis were not positioned as premium phones and they did not have great cameras or battery life. If Apple had tried for a 13 Pro Mini and it didn’t sell, then maybe I’d believe that their market statistics were worth something.
I'm genuinely bummed that Apple killed the Plus iPhone.
For years, it was the perfect sweet spot -- bigger screen and bigger battery without the Pro price tag. It was especially great for elderly users: easier to read, easier to hold, and they didn't have to pay $1,000+ just to get a phone they could actually see and use.
The jump from the base model to the Plus was usually just $100, but you got a noticeably larger display and often better battery life -- the kind of practical upgrade most people actually cared about.
Now, if you want a larger screen without breaking the bank... well, you can't. Apple's lineup basically forces you into the Pro models, which feels like a loss for accessibility and for people who just want "big and simple."
I wish they'd kept the Plus around. It wasn't flashy, but it served a real audience.
Quite frankly ,I don't trust Apple with their battery claims. Esp. when they sell magsafe packs for this one.
Sorry, but no air. Yes it would be a cool second phone in case you go to events, but in that case, I'd prefer a mini with a better camera.
APR?
take this thinner phone, add more battery to get back to the size of the current one, thats what I want. 3+ day battery life please.
There's a magsafe attachment you can get to increase the battery life
when will apple make an iphone for adults? adults who need good battery life and have better things to do than take pictures for social media. a good UI wouldnt hurt either
i have been waiting for an updated iphone SE and with this event i am officially giving up. there is no phone that is simple, functional, reliable and not overpriced. apple is the company that is supposed to make it but i guess they have moved on to other strategies. instead they focus on making hideous bulges and UI that would make steve jobs’ head explode. im fed up with it
bReAkThRoUgH dEsIgN
What a joke. Recycled design from 6/11 is breakthrough in Apple world
Am I the only one who has never owned an Apple iPhone? I just got my Pixel 7 upgraded to Pixel 10 Pro XL, couldn't be happier.
All I want is a new SE-sized iPhone with a headphone jack. I'll preorder right now if you want to collect my money
It looks so fragile to me like I’ll bend it the first week
I do like this, but since most people put some big case on their phone anyway, does the thickness of the phone matter that much?
Well, a thick phone with a thick case is very thick while a thin phone with a thick case is only somewhat thick and a thin phone with a think case is only barely thick.
The thinnest phone is still the Vivo X5 Max from 10 years ago. It was 4.75 mm (iPhone Air: 5.5 mm) without significant camera bump to speak of. Here are some pictures:
https://gsmarena.com/vivo_x5max-pictures-6865.php
Apparently the "thin phone" trend is coming back.
The camera hump removes all the "feeling" of having a super thin phone. Also, my phone not being thin enough was never a problem I had. Laptops being thin? Yes that makes sense. But this is barely lighter than the other iPhones. It's all aesthetic.
But how thin will it be when I put an OtterBox case on it, giving it some chance of surviving for more than 4 months in my day-to-day use?
I feel like Apple goes back to the crutch of industrial design when they start running out of new use cases.
Or maybe I have it backwards and they always lead with industrial design and fall into use cases.
All I know is that I want new use cases from my devices.
That camera bump is ugly as sin
Thin design rendered moot by the ugly "plateau" (wtf is that marketing term?)
Just make the thing a uniform thickness and cram it with battery.
I am curious if this will bend.
I dont know whats apple obsessions with thinness, instead they should focus on usability and battery life.
I've been a PC guy my whole live, and was forced onto a MacBook Pro this year for work.
The battery life is insane. The idea of charging my laptop has become this weird ritual now, only known of in lore and legend, that I partake of only when there is a blood moon.
They did that too, in the other products. Longest battery ever.
I assume they're getting ready for a folding iPhone, so the thinness tech is being developed largely for that. They're releasing this thin iPhone to test the market and to make use of it in the meantime.
I don’t see it; to my mind the last great Apple thin product was the 12” MacBook from 2015.
> dont know whats apple obsessions with thinness
It forces them to the forefront of miniaturisation and efficiency. It's also something they're unusually good at, which creates differentiation.
> they should focus on usability
usability is so '00. Nowadays the focus is on ads.
This costs 43 dollars and was released in 2007. https://www.ebay.com/itm/116641357542
The iphone air costs more than a thousand dollars but it's thinner.
I have no idea why people pay for this shit.
Another phone that does not lie flat on the table.
slippery like an ice cube and requires a case by design
Cant wait for Bendgate 2025 edition
I was hoping for more content on AR and the next phase of the Apple Vision Pro. Is the Apple Vision Pro considered a failure at this point?
They keep trying to hire me, so they haven’t given up.
It’s limited by TSMC. M2 is where v1 is. I expect they want at least double the efficiency, and maybe this new pro liquid cooling, to try for a v2.
Now make it 4 inches, and we'll be back to something approaching the perfection of iPhone 5.
Small phones don't sell well. The numbers prove this. Most people want to doom scroll or consume video content on their phones and it is better to do that when the screen is bigger.
Once again, stuff I don't care about. We would be 3x as impressed if it was 3x as wide and 3x battery life.
TouchID is also still sorely missed, and I will die on that hill. I'm on a 2022 SE hoping they change their mind one day. FaceID is a repellent experience.
can we just get an iPhone Fat with 20000 mAh battery and a LCD screen (5% of population is sensitive to OLED PWM)
https://mashable.com/article/samsung-galaxy-a21-airplane-fir...
https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2025/More-than-One-Million-Anke...
Well you could just stick a huge fat Magsafe battery on the back of the phone...
I prefer the term iPhone Thiccc
hear me out: they make a slim phone, just to develop the supply chain around a foldable display to finally release a folding phone that is a sandwich of the air!
/s
Such vision! /s
YOU HAVE TO BE A REAL FUCKING DUMBASS TO CARE ABOUT PHONE THICKNESS.
Alright, buckle up — here’s a *Curb Your Enthusiasm scene* where Larry takes the iPhone Air press release way too personally at the Apple Store.
---
### Scene: Apple Store, Santa Monica
*Larry* walks in, holding his old iPhone with a cracked screen. He approaches a blue-shirted *Apple Genius*.
*Larry:* So I hear you got this new iPhone Air. Thinnest phone ever, huh? Five-point-six millimeters. What is this, a phone or a Wheat Thin?
*Genius:* It’s our most advanced design yet. Stronger, lighter—
*Larry:* Stronger? If it’s so strong, why is it thinner than a Ritz cracker? You ever eaten a Ritz cracker? Crumbles right in your hand! That’s what I’m gonna be holding here. Crumbs! Phone crumbs in my pocket!
*Genius:* Actually, it’s titanium. Aerospace grade.
*Larry:* Oh! Aerospace. Yeah, good. Because when I’m playing Sudoku on the toilet, I really want NASA technology under my thumbs. Very important. “Houston, I got a number two problem.”
*Genius:* The new 48-megapixel Fusion camera—
*Larry:* Fusion? What am I, splitting atoms now? I just want to take a picture of a sandwich. I don’t need the Manhattan Project in my pocket. And the front camera’s square? Square! Cameras are round, wheels are round, even faces are round. You make it square, now I look like SpongeBob in every selfie.
*Genius:* Well, the square sensor lets you take landscape photos while holding your phone vertically.
*Larry:* Vertically? Vertically?! Oh, thank you, Apple, you’ve saved me from rotating my wrist. What a terrible burden it’s been. Centuries of humanity struggling, and finally Apple says, “Don’t move your wrist, Larry, we’ll do it for you.” Unbelievable.
*Genius:* It also has all-day battery life.
*Larry:* All-day? What’s “all day”? My day? Your day? A raccoon’s day? Be specific! At 11:58 p.m. the phone dies and you go, “Oh, sorry Larry, guess your day’s over!” I still got two episodes of Columbo left, pal!
*Genius:* It’s also eSIM only.
*Larry:* Oh, fantastic. No physical SIM. So if I lose signal, I can’t even take it out, blow on it, do the old Nintendo trick. I just stare at my \$1,000 “air” sandwich and pray. That’s the feature? Praying?
*Genius:* It starts at \$999—
*Larry:* Nine-ninety-nine! For a phone that could slip between two couch cushions and vanish forever. You should sell it with a metal detector. “Find your iPhone Air before it suffocates under the ottoman!”
(Larry storms out, muttering.)
*Larry:* Thin phone, thick price. What a world.
---
Want me to *write another one where Larry’s actually at the launch keynote*, interrupting Tim Cook from the audience like a heckler?
Don't post AI-generated comments to Hacker News, especially long comments which scroll the page but add nothing to the discussion.
travel
iPhone (Hot) Air.
For the demanding blowhole. Now available in pink.
I here to say... will it bend?
Who on earth is this for???
Some day soon they'll release a phone with no battery and you'll need to BYOB.
Thin phone that we're all just going to put a case on and forget what it looks like because everyone's phone just looks like an Otterbox or whatever.
Apple is cooked.
Upvote for Otterbox
Eh the new bumpers and clear cases look interesting (but the white MagSafe pattern is just stupid — should just leave it off). I'll probably get an Air and one of these cases, or a thin third party case.
My experience is "air" in an Apple product's name means battery life is measured in tens of minutes and the fan makes a horrible racket because the CPU is underpowered and intended for only short suprts of activity. That's fine for a laptop because you can keep it plugged in and use your other computer to do tasks that require CPU, but not appropriate for a mobile phone that you may want to operate untethered for hours at a time.
I'm sure Apple's official word on this is battery life is sufficient for more than a couple of hours of untethered stand-by. I'm just questioning the wisdom of the naming convention. They trained their user community to understand that "air" means low-CPU power / low battery life / thinner package. Are there enough potential customers who will prioritize thin form factor over usability?
Nevermind. I just answered my own question.
[Edit: I understand the Apple fanbois will want to down-vote this, but look at the second sentence of the second paragraph. I am not saying the iPhone Air will be bad. I am saying that the "Air" name has, in the past, been applied to some pretty sub-standard products. I am asking if it's wise to apply a name that has been used for lower-end products to new products that aren't "lower end."]
It's been long enough that this doesn't seem true anymore. The current Macbook Air is fanless, and has around 18 hours of battery life with an 8-core M4.
Did you uhhhh read any of the announcement, or just jump straight to writing this comment?
The 17 Air reports 27 hours of video playback - the same as the 16 Pro.
[flagged]
> Oh fuck off.
> Amazing marketing wank.
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Awww you upset you can’t afford it?
Imagine putting the phone on the table and seeing it rocking side to side when you press it, the nightmare. Somebody needs to change this stupid trend urgently, we don't need thinner phones.
The iPhone 17 will rock less than previous iPhones with the bulge since this new bulge goes across the entire phone width.
What I would like is an iphone for like $200 with a stable set of features that I don't have to buy off the used market. I don't care if it's 2 generations behind, because these new phones don't offer anything I care about.
As far as I can tell from the announcement, they're focusing on content creators. Since I don't stream and am not an Instagrammer, it's irrelevant to me. Selling me one of these cameras is just a waste. I don't even know how to make the phone use the second (or third) camera.
This with the glass ui thing feels like now they're doing "innovation" for the sake of "innovation". But as someone said on the other thread about this thing (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45185576), at this point they could just make a cardboard phone, wrap it with some fancy words and would sell it like crazy.
I see many comments screaming "WE NEED MORE BATTERY LIFE!"
I'm curious who needs more battery life than the iPhone air will provide? Every single person I know of commutes to and from work daily either in a car where they can charge their phone or to a desk that has a charger (wired or wireless).
The iPhone Air is rated for 27 hours of videoplayback. Let's say it works for a QUARTER of that, its still 7 hours of playback.
What kind of people are away from a charger for more than 7 hours who also only consume content for those 7 hours on a regular basis?
What kind of individuals are these? Please explain
I am not using a car, I do not commute, I do not go to an office.
I usually spend my days outside, roaming the city, sitting in parks and cafes. I have a 13mini and started to carry a lightweight power bank in my backpack because it tends to run empty before I get back home, which is a problem with electronic ticket for public transport.
A lot of people will also simply prefer the convenience of not having to plug their phone in more often than necessary. They have it in their backpack or purse, which makes it extra inconvenient to think of taking it out just to charge plus needing a cable and charger in multiple places, compared to the evenings when you may remove multiple items from it.
Proximity to a charger isn’t the answer. I’m home all day, but I still don’t want to be monitoring battery life all day or tied to chargers. I only want to change while I sleep.
I have a 16 Pro and every so often something runs in the background that destroys my battery in half a day. I still don’t know what it is. The settings don’t make it clear.
I haven’t complained about the battery life on the Air, but I’d rather have a bigger battery to the point of eliminating the camera bump, than having a marginally thinner phone that shoves everything in a bigger relative bump.
I live in an area which has frequent power cuts. Having a larger battery would certainly relieve me of carrying power banks.
Going on a hike in the weekend? Or basically anything where you're not going to the office? lol
> I'm curious who needs more battery life than the iPhone...
You aren't curious at all. You have formed an opinion. :)
Apple recognizes the deficiency, hence they created the battery accessory which they would love to up-self.
Step 1: Reduce battery life
Step 2: Sell battery accessory, profit.