By Stephen Nellis and Aditya Soni
CUPERTINO, California (Reuters) -Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared to be channeling his predecessor and design genius Steve Jobs on Tuesday when he unveiled the iPhone Air, the company’s slimmest handset yet and the biggest change in eight years to a lineup that fans and analysts complained was stagnating.
Cook kicked off the company’s annual product launch event at its Cupertino, California, headquarters with a Jobs quote: “For us, design goes beyond just how something looks or feels. Design is also how it works.”
Inside its 5.6-millimeter-thick (0.22 inch) frame – thinner than Samsung Electronics’ S25 Edge at 5.8 mm – the iPhone Air’s circuitry has been shrunk to the size of a few postage stamps, clearing the way for as much battery capacity as possible.
Going into the event, many analysts had predicted a ho-hum reception to the product launches, but on Tuesday some said the four new iPhones – iPhone Air, iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max – offered a lineup likely to appeal to customers with varied budgets.
And doubts still linger about whether the new smartphone will match its promised battery capacity, and whether consumers will settle for one fewer camera.
It will have Apple’s best and newest A19 Pro processor chip, which is tuned to handle artificial intelligence tasks, and two new custom Apple communications chips.
“I heard loud claps the moment it was announced,” said Gaurav Chaudhary, a YouTuber with nearly 24 million followers, popularly known as “Technical Guruji.” He praised the Air’s titanium frame and “ceramic shield” glass, which Apple said make the device more durable.
Chaudhary said that despite hearing numerous leaks about the device ahead of time, he was still impressed after handling it in the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple headquarters, even if he still wants to see if Apple’s battery life claims hold up.
Seventeen years ago, Jobs famously introduced the company’s first MacBook Air by pulling the ultra-thin laptop from an interoffice envelope, to highlight how portable it was.
The iPhone Air, which borrows its name and design language from the laptop, may be what Apple fans have wanted for years: A device that looks different from others on the market and is packed with feats of hardware engineering in every square millimeter.
“I think in an era where we’ve seen a large degree of sameness, it’s great to see Apple bring a new product to the market. It kind of reinvigorates the whole segment of iPhone,” said PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore.
On the downside, however, the iPhone Air has only one camera, compared with two separate cameras on the base iPhone 17 and three on the Pro models.
Ben Bajarin, CEO of technology consultancy Creative Strategies, said it will also be critical to confirm whether it can live up to Apple’s battery life claims. He said Apple’s custom chips should help, because the company has spent more than a decade designing its own chips with a relentless focus on energy efficiency and size.
The new product launches brought no new announcements, however, on artificial intelligence features that would help Apple to close the gap with the likes of Alphabet’s Google, which has used its latest flagship phones to showcase the capabilities of its Gemini AI technology.
But analysts said the iPhone Air, especially, was likely to spur many upgrades, boosting Apple’s sales in the crucial holiday shopping season.
It could also help Apple win back customers in China, where Apple has lost market share to rivals who have introduced slimmer smartphones, analysts said.
“It’s miniaturization at its finest in a phone,” Bajarin said.
The iPhone Air is priced in the middle of the iPhone lineup and at $100 less than the debut price of Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge, which hit markets earlier this year and shipped 1 million units in the second quarter, according to IDC. The price should make it a strong seller, said Nabila Popal, senior research director with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker unit.
Popal predicted better sales for the iPhone Air, “not only because it’s priced better, but because the (iPhone) Plus – which essentially the Air is replacing – already did between 5-7% of Apple’s shipments.”
“Apple’s late, but when they do it, they do it bigger or louder or better than anyone,” Popal said.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis and Aditya Soni in Cupertino, California; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh and Edmund Klamann)
Comments