New video shows extremely thin iPhone 17 Air
Apple plans to release a brand-new, super-thin iPhone this year, unveiling it alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. We’ve seen images of dummy models, cases, and design renderings, but Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy showed off more recent dummy models today that give us a better idea of how thin the Apple iPhone 17 Air will really be.
The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be around 5.5 mm thick, with the camera module sticking out a bit further, as usual. This makes it the thinnest iPhone ever. The iPhone 17 Pro models are expected to be around 8.725 mm thick, so there will be a significant difference compared to the iPhone 17 Air.
Hilsenteger was impressed by the thinness of the iPhone 17 Air and speculated about whether it would bend due to its thin casing. Rumors suggest that Apple will use a titanium and aluminum casing for the iPhone 17 Air to ensure it’s strong enough to resist bending. Apple already had a problem with this in 2014 with “bendgate,” after some users noticed that the iPhone 6 Plus began to bend while still in their pockets.
Apple also decided to keep the 6.6-inch display size out of fear that a larger display might make the iPhone 17 Air too prone to bending. Apple originally wanted to use a 6.9-inch display, which would put it on par with the iPhone 17 Pro Max. The fact that Apple reduced the display size during development suggests that either 6.6 inches is the sweet spot in terms of stability, or that Bendgate 2.0 premiered at 6.9 inches.
iPhone 17 Air with long battery life?
Given the thin design, Hilsenteger also questioned how the iPhone 17 Air’s battery life would be. On the other hand, Apple is foregoing features like additional camera lenses for good reason, in order to have enough space for the battery.
Added to that is the more efficient, in-house developed C1 modem and optimized software. This should mean that the battery life is in no way inferior to the current iPhones, even if the Air will hardly come close to the current long-runner, the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
