Apple is going to achieve its initial thickness goal for the iPhone 17 Air, according to a new report.
Rumors have been swirling around that Apple is planning a new slim model that will replace the Plus variant. A recent leak said that the company may stray from its original goal of producing a phone with a thickness of 6mm due to technical hurdles related to the size of the battery.
According to Haitong International Securities Group’s tech researcher Jeff Pu, Apple is charging on with plans to keep the thickness at 6mm. This would make the iPhone 17 Air thinner than the iPhone 6, which is the thinnest phone Apple has released to date. The device is 6.9mm thick, which makes it thinner than both phones released before it and after it.
We agreed with the recent chatter of an 6mm thickness ultra-slim design of the iPhone 17 Slim model.
Jeff Pu, researcher at Haitong International Securities Group, November 2024
So while the iPhone 17 Air might not be as slim as may have envisioned it to be, Apple is still going to trim down an impressive amount of heft to make the phone thinner and lighter than the current top phones.
As MacRumors notes, even after becoming the leanest iPhone, the iPhone 17 Air wouldn’t be Apple’s thinnest product, a distinction currently held by the 5.1mm thick 13-inch iPad Pro.
Per previous reports, the iPhone 17 Air, which might alternatively be known as the iPhone 17 Slim, will flaunt a 6.6-inch display with a Dynamic Island and Face ID, the rumored A19 chip, 8GB of RAM, an in-house 5G modem, and a lone 48MP rear camera.
Samsung is allegedly also working on an iPhone 17 Air competitor of its own which will reportedly be released in the second quarter of 2025.
The iPhone 17 Air, on the other hand, is expected to be announced in September alongside the rest of the iPhone 17 lineup.