Apple has long been rumored to launch the iPhone 17 Air alongside the other models next year . This is to be Apple ’s light and svelte iPhone in the series , replacing the iPhone 16 Plus , which has poor sales numbers among the quartette . Up until now , rumor said the iPhone 17 Air would be 6 millimetre thick ; however , it may be even thinner in real life , shedding some features .
As per new leak , the iPhone 17 Air would apparently be between 5 to 6 mm thick . And that ’s unbalanced slim for a phone ! Now , this is n’t entirely impossible . For appetiser , we saw a tendency of slim smartphones back in 2014 , with the likes of the Vivo X5 Max ( 4.75 mm ) and Oppo R5 ( 4.85 mm ) , and this movement may see a comeback with the iPhone 17 Air and the supposedGalaxy S25 Slim .
The current iPhone 16 is 7.8 mm thick , while the iPhone 16 Pro measures 8.25 millimetre thick . But it seems Apple is target the iPhone 17 aviation to be as slight as its iPad . Yes , while the up-to-the-minute iPad Air is 6.1 mm thick , the new iPad Pro is even slimmer at 5.1 mm , and it seems Apple could peradventure couple this thickness .
It would be interesting to see how this goes , however , this will come with trade - offs .
iPhone 17 Air’s Compromises for Slimness
A lot of components go into a smartphone and it ’s tricky to put that many by today ’s standard into an extremely lean purpose . This is why some features have to go to reach this extreme slimness . So Apple may have to make some important compromises in the iPhone 17 Air ’s feature .
The iPhone 17 Air will reportedlylet go of support for physical SIM visiting card . You ’ll be capable to use eSIM on the phone , as with the iPhone 14 and later models sell in the United States , which already lack a SIM tray . This should be fine for most regions , but it could pose a problem in China , where the sale of smartphones with eSIMs is still not sanction . This could force Apple to either modify the iPhone 17 Air for the Taiwanese market or delay its release in the country .
Furthermore , there ’ll be asingle speaker that will double up as an headphone . Yes , no speaker at the bottom and no two-channel gist . So you may have to compromise on the overall audio tone when listen to music or even ringtones .
To save quad and retain the selling points of regular iPhone model , the Air may alsoget only a single cameraon the buns , as with all iPhone SE example let go of so far including theupcoming iPhone SE 4 .
And one more matter , the iPhone 17 Air will reportedly beusing an Apple - design modemthat would take less infinite and also be more effective than the Qualcomm modems the brand has been using to date . While this would save blank space , the speech sound will lack mmWave support and hence have less telling connectivity and slower roving information speed than Qualcomm .
regard all of this , the iPhone 17 Air would likelyalso have a small barrage sizing , credibly smaller than the iPhone 16 ’s 3,561mAh jail cell . However , paired with a raw Bionic cow dung ’s power efficiency , that should still get you through a day of use . We ’re currently unsure if Apple would be removing MagSafe / wireless level to maintain the slimness .
