The important thing to creating a profitable product is to determine an issue after which supply to resolve it. However what occurs when no issues stay? Then it’s a must to create one. Or three.
At its “Awe Dropping” occasion as we speak, Apple unveiled the iPhone Air, which at 5.6mm is its thinnest-ever smartphone. (It’s even thinner than these 17 very skinny issues.) However fairly than explaining why this super-svelte design is an efficient factor for patrons, the corporate largely performed protection. A lot of the presentation was spent reassuring followers that the design’s apparent drawbacks gained’t be a difficulty.
As I’ve argued earlier than, making the acquainted iPhone design thinner is an odd determination as a result of it requires the consumer to compromise in three necessary areas for the sake of an improve that seems to be largely aesthetic. However don’t fear! Apple is on the case to repair the issues it simply created.
Ache level 1: Sturdiness
Almost everybody’s first thought when the iPhone Air grew to become a critical rumor for this cycle was to fret a couple of repeat of Bendgate, the spate of buyer complaints following the launch of the 7.1mm iPhone 6 Plus in 2014. If that gadget was liable to bending, certainly the 5.6mm iPhone Air could be even worse?
Not so! Apple hurried to clarify that the iPhone Air has the advantages of a space-grade titanium chassis which “exceeds Apple’s stringent bend energy necessities,” because the press launch boasts. The show is protected by the brand new Ceramic Defend 2 on the entrance, whereas (presumably first-gen) Ceramic Defend protects the glass on the again. With 3x higher scratch resistance and 4x higher crack resistance than the earlier technology, iPhone Air is essentially the most sturdy iPhone ever. And it’ll should be.
Apple
Ache level 2: Battery life
Slicing the thickness of the case by 28 p.c means a smaller battery. However Apple once more took pains to guarantee us that this doesn’t imply the iPhone Air has poor battery life. It highlighted, considerably vaguely, “software program optimizations,” in addition to an uncommon inner structure (principally cramming the speaker and Apple silicon componentry into the digicam module, now renamed because the plateau), which wins again some area for the battery.
The easiest way to make your energy reserves last more, nonetheless, is to make use of much less of it. The Air is roofed in that regard by a trio of recent Apple chips (the A19 Professional processor with its 4 effectivity cores, the C1X mobile modem, which Apple says makes use of 30 p.c much less power than the earlier technology, and the N1 wi-fi chip) which make it “essentially the most power-efficient iPhone ever made.”
iOS 26 ought to assist, too. Apple highlighted the brand new software program’s Adaptive Energy Mode, which learns about your utilization patterns with the intention to intelligently preserve energy when and the place needed. However that isn’t distinctive to the iPhone Air. It’s simply useful.
All in all, battery life shouldn’t be too dangerous. Go to the Examine iPhone web page on Apple’s web site (fairly than the comparability instrument on the iPhone Air web page, which solely permits you to evaluate it to the iPhone 15 or older!) and also you’ll discover it’s greater than respectable even when in comparison with latest handsets. The Air is pegged at an estimated 27 hours of video playback, which is behind the iPhone 17 (30 hours), 17 Professional (33 hours), and 17 Professional Max (39 hours), in addition to the 16 Professional Max (33 hours). However it’s effectively forward of the iPhone 16 (22 hours), barely forward of the 16e (26 hours) and lifeless degree with the iPhone 16 Professional and 16 Plus.
And if battery life does show to be an issue, you’ll be able to all the time purchase the Air’s $99 MagSafe Battery accent, which was introduced on the identical time and is by some means solely appropriate with the Air.
Apple
Ache level 3: Digital camera efficiency
The ultimate apparent drawback with the Air design considerations the rear-facing digicam setup, which solely will get a single bodily lens. That’s an astonishing throwback, contemplating that (excluding the price range SE and 16e fashions) iPhones have had not less than two lenses on the again because the XS in 2018, and the Professional fashions have had three because the 11 Professional in 2019. On condition that iPhones have absorbed the position beforehand occupied by digital cameras and are used for that operate greater than virtually every other, such a drastic compromise feels scary.
So Apple but once more moved to assuage these fears. As a substitute of referring to it as a single-lens setup (which is how the 2022 iPhone SE is labelled on the comparability web page; equally, the iPhone 16 is particularly labeled as “dual-camera”), the corporate talked about it providing two lenses in a single: the 48MP Fusion predominant digicam, plus a 12MP 2x telephoto. It appears to be the identical advertising and marketing technique used for the iPhone 16e, which additionally has a single rear lens but is labeled as having a “2-in-1 digicam system” on the Apple web site.
However do the iPhone Air and iPhone 16e actually have two lenses in a single? It might seem that the “12MP telephoto” merely refers back to the additional 2x optical (or fairly “optical-quality”) zoom, which Apple has claimed for its iPhones since they obtained a bump to 48MP: any 48MP iPhone can obtain this by cropping into the middle 12 megapixels of the sensor. Certain sufficient, in the event you evaluate the iPhone Air (with its “2x telephoto”) to the iPhone 16, which doesn’t have telephoto, you’ll see they each have the identical most optical zoom of 2x. Whereas the iPhone 16, in contrast to the Air, has the flexibility to unzoom again to x.5, as a result of it does have an ultra-wide lens. The Air can also’t do both macro or spatial images both, each options of the iPhone 16.
So there are clearly gaps within the iPhone Air’s rear images arsenal; it could be troublesome to argue that it’s a match for latest two-lens iPhones in each regard. On the identical time, I’d be stunned if the Air takes dangerous images. iPhone images has superior to the purpose the place it’s significantly extra highly effective than most of us want it to be, and my expertise of reviewing even comparatively underpowered handsets just like the 16e is that it’s a must to actually hunt down essentially the most demanding taking pictures circumstances to seek out any noticeable weaknesses.
And on the subject of the entrance digicam… effectively, that’s a unique matter. It’s a major step up on the earlier technology. The Air’s selfie digicam is rated at 18MP, up from 12MP on your entire 16-series, and now options the iPad’s useful Middle Stage characteristic for automated reframing primarily based on face detection. Due to the bigger sq. sensor, you’ll be able to take selfies in portrait orientation (typically essentially the most handy), and Middle Stage will reframe them as both portrait or panorama with out having to alter grip. The entrance digicam can be able to ultra-stabilised video in 4K HDR.
Apple
The whole lot (else) is superior
Maybe this can sound disingenuous following the feedback above, however I don’t wish to rag on the iPhone Air an excessive amount of. As a result of that is precisely the sort of dangerous product Apple must be releasing. This can be a remarkably conservative firm, by and enormous, and it prefers to launch merchandise that are the identical because the earlier technology, solely barely higher. To launch a product which is identifiably worse in some respects with the intention to obtain one thing genuinely new is thrilling and admirable.
It’s fascinating, nonetheless, that the Air’s distinctive promoting proposition—being amazingly skinny—wasn’t addressed within the presentation wherever close to as a lot because the three matters I’ve mentioned on this article. The audio system made just a few poetic remarks about “feeling such as you’re holding the long run” and having to carry it to imagine it’s actual, however little or no time was spent explaining why we’d like a 5.6mm telephone when 7mm+ telephones have been completely tolerable for greater than a decade.
The iPhone 17 Air is a outstanding telephone.
Apple
Has anybody obtained denims pockets so tight their iPhone 16 gained’t match inside? Is the iPhone 16e too heavy? Do we actually want a thinner iPhone? That’s the half the place I would like persuading.
However it’s a stupendous object, there’s little doubt about that. The mirrored end is good. The colours are good (albeit maybe a little bit too refined; I’d like to have the choice of sage like on the iPhone 17). I just like the look of that vibrant 6.5-inch show, a worthwhile bounce from the 6.1-inch display screen on the iPhone 16, and the truth that ProMotion and always-on are additionally out there on the iPhone 17 doesn’t make them any much less appreciated. I do know the A19 Professional chip shall be overkill for as we speak’s apps, however it means simply that little bit extra future-proofing.
Briefly, I’m sufficiently intrigued by the iPhone Air that I wish to strive it out for myself. Proper now I don’t suppose there’s any level making a telephone this skinny, however I do know sufficient about tech developments to suspect that utilizing the Air might change my thoughts. By the point the 18-series iPhones seem subsequent 12 months I could have gotten so used to a 5.6mm chassis that I can’t bear to return to something bigger.
For more information about this 12 months’s new telephones, take a look at our large iPhone 17 superguide.