Julie Clover
For the past few months, we've been hearing rumors about a redesigned version of the iPhone 17, which Apple may call the iPhone 17 “Air” or something along those lines. It will replace the iPhone 17 Plus as Apple's fourth iPhone option, and will be offered alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max.
We know the iPhone 17 Air will be super thin, but there have been mixed rumors about how thin Apple will be able to make it. Rumors point to 6mm, though in a recent report, reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said he expects the iPhone to be around 5.5mm thick.
At 5.5mm, the iPhone 17 Air will be the thinnest iPhone ever. As of today, that title currently belongs to the 6.9mm iPhone 6, which came out way back in 2014. At 5.5mm, it will be about 30 percent thinner than the iPhone 16, which measures 7.8mm thick, and 33 percent thinner than the iPhone 16 Pro models, which measure 8.25mm thick.
It won't be too far off from the 12.9-inch iPad Pro that Apple released last year. The new iPad Pro is also very thin, measuring 5.1mm thick. In fact, it's Apple's thinnest device to date.
Apple is hoping the super-thin design will appeal to more people than the iPhone mini and iPhone Plus models, neither of which sold as well as the standard and Pro models. Apple discontinued the 5.4-inch iPhone mini option after the iPhone 13 mini and iPhone 16 Plus, which will apparently be the last “Plus” iPhone. Kuo says the iPhone 17 Air will be 5.5mm thick at its “thinnest point,” so it looks like we can still expect a camera bump. Apple plans to include a single 48-megapixel rear camera, though the company opted to go with just one lens due to space constraints in such a small body.
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Some of the early rumors about the iPhone 17 Air suggested that it would be more expensive than the Pro models, but that doesn't seem to be the case. It will be a mid-range model in size and features, with a 6.6-inch display and an A19 chip, which won't be as fast as the A19 Pro expected to power the iPhone 17 Pro models. It will also feature a custom Apple modem chip, which won't offer the fastest mmWave 5G speeds.
While Kuo is targeting 5.5mm, it's worth noting that Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said in December that the iPhone 17 Air would be 2mm thinner than the iPhone 16 Pro models, putting its actual thickness at 6.25mm. At 5.5mm, it would be closest to the iPad Pro, but even at 6.25mm, it would still be the thinnest iPhone yet. as of today.
iPhone 17 Air is expected to launch alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max in September 2025. For more information on what to expect from the entire iPhone 17 lineup, check out our dedicated review.
Related review: iPhone 17 [ 220 comments ]
