That’s not nothing
What do you need battery life for?
Aren’t you in your house or office or car near a charger most of the day?
Do you spend 90% of your waking day in the middle of an open field far from any sort of charging capabilities?
Why would I add more weight to a phone so I don’t have to put it on the charging MagSafe puck that is inches away from me at all times
I don't think the average person sits at home for 90% of the day doing nothing but using their phone and resting it on a magsafe.
But I could be wrong!
Either way, I'm pretty sure that's not the lifestyle Apple wants to market their phone to.
But I could be wrong there, too!
Those who commute to and from work by car can charge in the car
Those who work in an office can charge at the office
Those who are at school can charge at school
The vast majority of western society is in one of those settings most of the day
Planes also have charging ports
Trains have charging ports
If you are at the gym you can have a MagSafe portable charger in your gym bag that charges your phone when you hit the showers
Give me a few examples of who actually isn’t near a charger for 8 hours at a time
A full time skier or surfer?
I can’t think of the groups of people who need such long battery life
It does not seem Apple cares about customers being too stubborn to not want to use any of the many options to juice up a phone mid day
I guess those users can get the iPhone max and not have to charge all day. So you’ll be fine
A charger is like $50
Why would I carry around a brick in my pocket instead to save a few chargers
How does that make any sense
Also my iPhone 14 Pro lasts a full day 90% of my days on 1 charge
I use my iPad or MacBook most of the day for work or am driving
but yeah, everywhere around all day there is charging options easily even in many public transports here around europe, battery life is simply not a convern anymore for most people at all. the only time i even thin kis when I forgot recharging over night for some reason, but then in the office theres plenty of options to recharge too
Seriously?
Where are people consuming so much content that they need more than 10 hours of screen time per charge
Just doom scrolling in the middle of a field for 600 straight minutes until their phones die?
When travelling how? By car you have a cable charger or wireless charger in 99% of cars I’ve been in
Planes have plugs Trains have plugs Ubers have plugs
It seems like that is a once in a while occurrence for you
In which case you’d be better off with a thin phone the vast majority of other days and pack a thin MagSafe charger for those once in a blue moon travel days and it would just be slightly thicker than a thick phone while the vast other days you’d have a thin phone
No, thanks, I have up to 5 days of the runtime, I don't need a paperthin phone which I need to babysit.
It's when you need the phone the most that battery life matters and it's usually when you are very far from your common routine/habits.
When you are in holydays in a foreign city, constantly taking pictures, looking up stuff, using GPS to find places, this is when battery life is the most needed and relevant. Inconveniently, it's exactly the times where it will be hard to find a convenient power sources, exactly when you don't have time to wait in a single spot to let your phone charge and precisely when it's a pain in the ass to have to deal with external batteries and other half-assed inconvenient "solutions".
It makes a huge difference.
But Apple doesn't sell useful technology anymore, they are in the business of selling high end luxury fashion, that sometimes cosplay as technology, so whatever I guess...
Battery life isn't just about runtime it's also about the number of cyles you will be able to do before you have to deal with the bullshit that is iPhone battery replacement.
There is objectively no good reason to prefer that compromise appart from the "feeling" factor, which is not a reason by definition.
If get the battery compromise in the mini iPhones (even thought they could have just made them a bit thicker without changing much of the feel/functionality) because that's part of the deal with the form factor but going with a very large display only to make the phone thinner is beyond stupid.
And it's more expensive when most of the specs sheet is equal or worse.
the small battery won't affect me much. web browsing is the most demanding workload on my phone, which is not a problem on this a19 soc unlike the 13 mini whose soc struggles to keep up. i also charge my phone every night before i go to sleep and these phones do a great job at not draining overnight.
Granted I loved the 13 mini and that didn't sell so who knows.
It is almost as good as the (smaller) first gen iPhone SE with the physical button.
Apple focusing on thinness is proof to me a foldable phone is next.
Seriously. Take a look at the foldable touchscreen phones that do exist. "Because" is the only answer.
[1] https://qz.com/1288272/bendgate-was-real-apple-knew-the-ipho...
Like the iPad which many said is useless and just a bigger iPhone and so far Apple has sold ~500,000,000 iPads
Got it.
BTW iPhone Air is 165g. It's 22g more than my iPhone 6s but since its much taller and wider I expect it to feel lighter.
It's 51g lighter than 14pro, which is very significant.
Apple doesn't care about weight. If they did, they'd use a lot more plastic and a lot less glass, metal and ceramic.
Apple: here's the thinnest phone ever
good. they just caught on with Android in 2020.
Just make the thing a uniform thickness and cram it with battery.
https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_mate_xt_ultimate-review-2808...
I'm considering it. I'm not particularly married to the thinness. But I like the lightness.
I'm not an avid photographer. And I don't put a case on my phones. The only real tradeoffs I need to look into is processing and battery life.
I view my phone primarily as something I'm obligated to carry on myself at all times to function in modern society. The easier it is to carry the better. When I need to upgrade my phone, I'll always choose the smallest iPhone by weight.
HN is mostly male. We need the opinion of the women that put a lot of effort into their appearance. Not wishing to over-generalise, but they need a thin phone that takes awesome selfies and shows that they are higher status than those with old fashioned bulky phones. Apple have ticked the boxes and they have probably booked out all the prime advertising spots to reach this demographic.
You're describing a case with a battery pack.
The battery life is insane. The idea of charging my laptop has become this weird ritual now, only known of in lore and legend, that I partake of only when there is a blood moon.
I think the problem is that Safari allows tabs to ask to be periodically woken while the laptop is asleep, and there is no obvious way to turn this off. And it will keep doing this until the battery is so low that the laptop needs to hibernate.
TL;DR: Make sure Power Nap is turned ON. It allows macOS to consolidate wakeup requests into a bulk queue. So the thing isn't turning on all the time.
At least I have something to look forward to when I upgrade.
It forces them to the forefront of miniaturisation and efficiency. It's also something they're unusually good at, which creates differentiation.
usability is so '00. Nowadays the focus is on ads.
And then I stared at the line about "remarkable all‑day battery life" and wondered what is so remarkable about that. Anyway... "The new iPhone Air MagSafe Battery has a thin and light design that magnetically attaches to the back of iPhone Air to extend battery life during busier days." So you can always turn it into a normal thickness phone with normal battery life it seems.
The laptop class (myself included) just don't understand. A huge portion of the world only has 1 computer and it's their phone. They rely on it for work, entertainment, and connectivity. They don't have a laptop where they can do all these things on whenever they want. Their phone is it. They want a big screen phone. It's no surprise that every time Apple made the screen bigger, it sold better.
I loved my 13 Mini but I understand why Apple has given up on it. It was a very good effort. They tried. Didn't sell. Maybe a foldable can solve this problem for both sides.
So, for phones, people say they want a small one to fit in your pocket. With, fair. But that generally means a smaller screen when you are using it. Which people don't really want.
Foldables help a ton with this. And I think that will ultimately pan out. People are understandably worried about being early on that train, though.
> A huge portion of the world only has 1 computer and it's their phone.
This is something that really surprised me to realise a couple of years ago - that unless they work in tech, most households (I don't know if most isn't an exaggeration, but a large proportion) don't have a laptop or desktop between them now.
I think there is: https://smallandroidphone.com/ This was started up by the people behind Pebble (including its re-launch this year). I actually emailed them a while back asking for a status update. They told me there are literally no high quality screens of an appropriate size available to OEMs. They would have to design & spin up their own display hardware, which is where things change from "expensive" to "infeasible." If there was an existing, high quality 4.5~5" screen, I think it'd be an easy slam dunk. But there apparently is not...
Too bad. I just hold out hope Apple will try the Mini again before my 13 dies.
This is something that really surprised me to realise a couple of years ago - that unless they work in tech, most households (I don't know if most isn't an exaggeration, but a large proportion) don't have a laptop or desktop between them now.
Also, I've been in poorer countries where the vast majority of the population rely on their phones to work. My real estate agent only used her phone for work including marketing herself, talking to clients on chat apps, and even doing the lease contract. Their phone is literally how they make a living.
This is noticeable when you interact with consumer software where the mobile app is clearly the preferred or only way to perform some action.
[0] https://www.ricsantos.net/2021/01/21/ios-device-resolution-g...
So I really don't understand people who would choose a larger phone, over a smaller one and then save the money they would have spent replacing it (plus the money they would have paid extra because larger is more expensive) to buy a cheap laptop or something
> save the money they would have spent replacing it (plus the money they would have paid extra because larger is more expensive) to buy a cheap laptop or something
The kind of people who want an iPhone are not going to settle for a Cheap Laptop. A MacBook Air can only really be had new for around $800 nowadays and those big iPhones are only like $599 right now (if iPhone 16e).
As it is, I hold my S21 with left hand, type with index finger of right - it's abysmal in terms of performance, but it's all I got.. landscape with both thumbs is usually worse because of such little lookahead / lookbehind - I can barely read the line I'm typing on - and fat thumbs. My kids do it all the time, but, well, their little girlish fingers (they are female) seem to manage it and they're quite quick at it.
My favorite phone (at least in terms of idea, execution wasn't perfect) was the Motorola Photon Q - full-size with slide-out keyboard. At least I could somewhat type quickly even if the keyboard wasn't great. Alas, 2012..
With a newish phone? I can probably type 10-20x as fast on my MS Natural keyboard (only one I can use for more than 30-40 minutes without RSI getting bad).. No wonder I don't "live on my phone" - I use it when necessary, and prefer my 40"+ 4K screen + real keyboard.
I have big hands, and can use my 16 Pro Max one handed no problem with minimal shifting of the device in my hands. I've never dropped it during one handed use on the go either.
Smaller devices are almost impossible for me to type on/be precise with touches because of this.
If those people wish to use phones for something they're not suited for, that's their business. But companies can, and should, have more than one product for different use cases. Nobody says "well only 5% of the market wears this size clothes so you better get used to going naked", instead manufacturers make all different sizes so as to capture more profits. I don't even particularly care if the smaller phone costs more because it's not as much in demand (so, less economy of scale). The problem is that nobody makes one at all, so I can't get what I want at any price whatsoever.
iPhone SEs sold like hotcakes and they were smaller than the minis.
If "all the people" wanted these phones, they would still exist.
so that I may relive my Palm Treo glory days.
IMHO most people in the real world increasingly use their smartphone as their primary computer and want a big screen.
This is the first iPhone is 5+ years that is will be hard to ignore for the massive base of users who'd given up on yearly upgrades.
I came here expecting to see that reflected (and see how others feel about the camera trade-off) but it's mostly repetitive comments asking who wants a thinner phone (ignoring it's almost 40% lighter than the most of the Pro Max devices out there)
Air: 6.5in, 165gm Pro 17: 6.9in, 233gm My current Pro Max 15: 6.7in, 221gm
Coming from the PM15, I give up 0.2in, but it weighs 56gm less. I do 95%+ of my reading on my phone - articles, books, everything. But I find the PM15 screen juuuuust slightly too large to be comfortable in the hand, and the normal Pro screen much too small for lots of reading. And I’ve been noticing early signs of RSI.
These dimensions are the goldilocks combination I’ve been waiting for.
The 40% lighter is nice though.
Seriously, Apple has not attempted a narrow high-end phone since the iPhone 5. The 12 and 13 minis were not positioned as premium phones and they did not have great cameras or battery life. If Apple had tried for a 13 Pro Mini and it didn’t sell, then maybe I’d believe that their market statistics were worth something.
The weight is also significantly (in percentage terms) greater.
It’s limited by TSMC. M2 is where v1 is. I expect they want at least double the efficiency, and maybe this new pro liquid cooling, to try for a v2.
I went from someone who had to have the latest phone on pre-order to someone who doesn't bother: this is the first time I'm considering a new phone release in years. I suspect many other people are in the same boat.
I'm just not sure if I'll miss 3 cameras too much.
If the M5 generation gets this GPU upgrade, which I don't see why not, then the era of viable local LLM inferencing is upon us.
That's the most exciting thing from this Apple's event in my opinion.
PS. I also like the idea of the ultra thin iPhone Air, the 2x better noise cancellation and live translation of Airpods 3, high blood pressure detection of the new Watch, and the bold sexy orange color of the iPhone 17 Pro. Overall, this is as good as it gets for incremental updates in Apple's ecosystem in a while.
Which is a very powerful feature for anyone who likes security or finding bugs in their code. Or other people's code. Even if you didn't really want to find them.
Meanwhile, the GPU is powerful enough for LLMs but has been lacking matrix multiplication acceleration. This changes that.
I don't blame you. It's confusing.
2. It moves some stuff from the external Neural Engine to the GPU, which substantially increases speeds for those workloads. That itself is a feature.
Will any of this really matter much to the average consumer at this point? Probably not. Not until Apple Intelligence gets off the ground.
This change is strictly adding matmul acceleration into each GPU core where it is being used for LLMs.
Maybe I'm the idiot, but you won't catch me dead paying laptop money for a neuter-computer.
Form factor. Touch screen. GPS. Cellular. Circular polarization. These are all literal hardware differences between the iPad and MacBook, and every single one of them makes the iPad suitable for my use case (ForeFlight running on an iPad mounted to the yoke) where a MacBook would not be.
My use-case is for travel, where I want to read books, and the very occasional time when I want to do some design work outside the office -- draw a diagram that sort of thing. A third rare use case is where a web site is buggy or limited in functionality for mobile browsers. In all these cases the unfolded screen allows me to do the thing I need to do without carrying a second device (tablet, eReader). Another marginal use-case is to show another person a photograph. The fold out screen is much easier to see and I think has better color rendition too.
For these use-cases I find the folding phone very worthwhile.
But...the benefit that trumps all that is that the phone itself is smaller (narrower) than the typical flagship phones these days. It fits in my pocket and my hand reaches across it. I'd never go back to a non-folding phone for this reason alone, even if I never unfolded it. In fact I almost never do unfold it, except when traveling.
fwiw it wasn't until the Fold6 that the "cover screen" typing experience was ok. I understand that the Fold7 is a bit wider and so probably better, but I can't justify the expense to upgrade so will sit out until the Fold8.
I guess if you're the sort that is not clumsy and you're in a mild climate you might get your money's worth
for reference these were Samsung Z Flip devices
Probably trying to find better screen materials, and addressing reliability issues.
I used Palm devices with resistive touch screens. It was good, but when you go glass, there's no turning back.
I would never buy a phone with folding screens protected by plastic. I want a dependable slab. Not a gimmicky gadget which can die any moment. I got my fix for dying flex cables with Casiopeia PDAs. Never again.
For those that are not chronically online, a mobile phone from a decade ago has everything they need. If you only have to phone the family, WhatsApp your neighbours, get the map out, use a search engine and do your online banking, then a flagship phone is a bit over the top. If anything, the old phone is preferable since its loss would not be the end of the world.
I have seen a few elderly neighbours rocking Samsung Galaxy S7s with no need to upgrade. Although the S7 isn't quite a decade old, the apps that are actually used (WhatsApp, online banking) will be working with the S7 for many years to come since there is this demographic of active users.
Now, what if we could get these people to upgrade every three years with a feature that the 'elderly neighbour' would want? Eyesight isn't what it used to be in old age, so how about a nice big screen?
You can't deliberately hobble the phone with poor battery life or programme it to go slow in an update because we know that isn't going to win the customer over, but a screen that gets tatty after three years? Sounds good to me.
I have several apps that no longer work on my otherwise good phone bought in 2018 because I can no longer update the OS that they require.
Edit: This is a honest question.
Whatsapp also no longer works on it, thus the phone is useless.
Which is sad, as it has a great camera, battery life and is very light.
It's small, has dual sim card sockets, and a headphone jack.
I'm not sure how I'd replace it to be honest.
- mobile mp3 player sales are low unless disk and battery life are greatly improved
- large display touch screen phone market is small unless someone solves the "app problem"
- smart watch market is tiny if exists at all unless someone makes one that is useful and has improved battery life
Every smartwatch that hasn't met that bar, which is almost all of them ever made, is a joke to me. I'd have ordered a RePebble had I not moved back to analogue dumbwatches instead just before they were announced (and were iOS not actively hostile to competing watch implementations).
But if you want to leave your smartphone at home, but you still want cellular and notifications, I agree the apple watch is the only game in town even if the battery life sucks.
I agree that Apple Watches don't last long enough between charges, but comparing them to a completely different class of device that's technically the same broad category is pointless.
A side effect is that this makes your watch look less new, and therefore less of a theft target.
The breakthru that made touchscreen phones works wasn’t an app ecosystem. That came after people were already crazy about iPhones. It was capacitive touch screens. Basically everything before was resistive touch, which is why they usually had styluses. Getting touch, and really multi-touch, working well was the game changer that redefined cell phones.
Apple cancelled their mini line which was 3% of sales.
It’s not a big enough slice for them to want to chase.
It's not really free. It's just built in to the cost of your plan. Your plan would be half the price if you weren't paying for the phone.
Typical strat for them is not to be first with an innovation, but to wait and work out the kinks enough that they can convince people that the tradeoffs are well worth making. Apple wouldn't be chasing that existing slice, they'd be trying to entice a larger share of their customers to upgrade faster.
The one I have used felt like using a real phone through a layer of vinyl, definitely not a pleasant experience.
There will never be a folding iPhone, simple as.
Also flip phones aren't dorky and have a 2000s vibe - but they don't fit Apple "you can have any color as long as it's black" approach to design.
In some ways I can't even fault them - fragmenting your device shapes/experiences to chase a niche look is not good business. But this is exactly what's pushing me out of Apple ecosystem - it's so locked down that if you don't want to fit into their narrow product lines you have no other options. There are no third party watch makers using apple watch hardware and software. No other phone makers with access to iPhone internals and iOS. Nobody can hack a PC OS onto an iPad or build a 2in1 MacOS device.
I feel like this is the last gen of Apple tech I'm in on - I just find there are so many devices that are compelling to me personally but don't fit into the walled garden. Plus Google seems light-year ahead on delivering a smart assistant.
I left the ecosystem after Catalina, and my experience with macOS at work has horrified me enough to stay well away. Nowadays I'm happily using NixOS on the desktop, laptop and homeserver. My biggest gripe is that I didn't switch sooner, probably could have saved a decent amount of cash eschewing the Apple tax, SaaS fees and macOS migration hamster-wheel.
It's OK but it feels bad because you are kind of trapped with their stuff if you invested in their ecosystem.
Meanwhile my Casio calculator watch: "bonjour"
This new battery however is only compatible with the Air as other phones have a bigger camera bump.
https://store.storeimages.cdn-apple.com/1/as-images.apple.co...
The camera bump on other models protrudes more towards the centre of the body. And thus the battery wouldn't fit (flush) and the Qi charging wouldn't engage properly.
And batteries don't last forever. When you upgrade to a new phone after a few years you'd likely need a new one anyways.
Worst case scenario just sell the old one on eBay if it's still holding a good charge!
Selling a thin phone with half a battery where you have to buy the other half and keep it attached to get a proper battery runtime (turning it into a normal-sized phone) can't be the solution Apple intended. At least I hope so. And that battery doesn't fit other iPhones as the camera bump of those other phones is in the way.
Based on that, it doesn't sound like it's that much worse. Of course, if you're trying to maximize battery longevity by not exceeding 80% charge, that might make it not very useful for many people.
With the addition of NPUs to the GPU, this story gets even more confusing...
It's the "market data reveals that consumers actually want the cheapest shittiest airplane tickets" of drugs. And you can read that in a couple different ways.
They copied pixel.
https://store.google.com/product/pixel_10_pro
To be fair, their announcements where close apart. There's a chance Pixel copied iPhone.
Copying pixel would have been great. They copied AND made it worse.
I wouldn’t in a million years buy a pixel, but their team deserves credit for making really beautiful hardware. IMO better than iPhone 16 Pro and MUCH better than iPhone 17 Pro.
Apple is cooked.
* i don't know if this is backed up statistically!
Totally felt the same during the live-translation demo, when these two casual business folks were talking about "the client will love the new strategy". Dystopian corporate gibberish.
I think the long and the short of it (place your bets) is that it could be perceived that Apple has lost its foothold on this ever-important (tm) share of the AI marketplace, whereas Google is happily integrating Gemini into all of its services, in a way that is actually functional / useful, with the most obvious entry point being its own Pixel hardware. They just dodged a regulatory bullet, partly due to AI competitiveness, but maybe they're not going to be on the whipping end of that sea change, after all ...
https://www.reuters.com/business/google-cloud-anticipates-le...
> Google Cloud revealed Tuesday it has lined up about $58 billion in new revenue over the next two years as it vies to become a more central component of the tech giant's future.
> The company said during its July earnings that the cloud division had surpassed a $50 billion annual revenue run rate. Google Cloud's backlog of non-recognized sales contracts is growing even faster than its revenue, unit chief Thomas Kurian told investors at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology conference.
Pro returning back to aluminum is very-very bad for durability.
Aluminium is very soft: it just deforms to a splash on every drop.
I really hope they go back to steel.
They also said that this was the first unibody iPhone. Can titanium be made the same way? The unibody MacBooks are really nice though I’m not sure if the same rigidity issues are at play in such small devices.
Too hot? Well bu-hoo, throttle it. Or, I dunno, don’t run glass shaders.
I drop my iphone more often than I need it to compute pi.
Aluminium deforms on drop too easily. Thanks, Ive had enough of iPhones 6 and alike to willingly come back.
> at actual professional video
On a phone? You must be kidding. Arri, red, blackmagic, sony.
Or maybe I have it backwards and they always lead with industrial design and fall into use cases.
All I know is that I want new use cases from my devices.
The power of a MacBook Pro in the bump of a phone, the rest is just battery, screen, antennas and heat dissipation. What other form factors are they working towards?
Software is eating hardware. I mean, who needs a phone or a laptop if they can be virtualized from a headset? Maybe the phone in the pocket becomes just a folding keyboard + battery combo.
One of my long term personal projects is a "post-laptop" portable computer combining a keyboard with an ARM computer module. The assumption being you could do without a screen and just use headset display like the xreal
I've only ever had phones with at least one (regular/physical) eSIM, and a 'slot' for an eSIM for travel.
What are the pros/cons of only eSIMs?
Edit: I'm not questioning eSIMs, which I know can be handy: my iPhone SE3 is physical+eSIM. I'm curious about no physical SIM. If you can support 1-eSIM+physical is it a big deal to go to >1-eSIM+physical?
If you break your phone, you may lose access to the number until you return to your home country.
Other than that, it’s the same.
For most people esim is better
Sure you can transfer them while upgrading the phone to a new one.
I am sure there are downsides to eSIM but particularly for the average consumer who gets a SIM in their new phone and never changes it... there is probably zero difference.
Pros:
- Super easy to get esims while traveling. e.g. in Mexico i downloaded an app while still in the airport and paid $5 with apple pay and instantly activated a 1 month esim.
- You can have multiple esimss. With physical sims you are limited to the physical number of sim slots on your phone, usually 1 or at most 2. With esim there is no such restriction.
- More secure. esims can't be cloned (e.g. sim swapping attack) or simply removed from a stolen phone like physical sims.
Cons:
- If you get a new phone, you cant just pop your physical sim in. You need to go through your provider to transfer, which requires calling them and verifying your identity.
I actually dont see this as a con really, I see this as a security benefit. Since I only get a new phone every 3-4 years, the 20 min on the phone it takes to transfer is not a significant burden.
This can be done with physical+esim, which my iPhone SE3 has.
Is there a distinct advantage to eSIM-only, with no physical slot, for travel?
> - You can have multiple esimss. With physical sims you are limited to the physical number of sim slots on your phone, usually 1 or at most 2. With esim there is no such restriction.
If you already have 1-eSIM capability, would it be hard to go to >1-eSIM+physical?
IDK about only but it’s easier to get an eSIM setup ahead of time. It’s also easier to keep a bunch of esims handy vs physical sims. Guess it depends on your needs.
Which, at least with my provider, you cannot do while roaming. So if I break my phone while travelling, I cannot access my online banking until I get back home.
I don't think this is true for all providers. I've never had to do this for T-Mobile for instance, it just activated without intervention.
This is incorrect. eSIMs are no different from physical SIMs once provisioned. The only difference is that instead of you having a physical smartcard, there is now a JavaCard-compatible card (embedded on the logic board or emulated by the modem) that gets provisioned remotely.
SIM swap attacks have nothing to do with your physical (or emulated) SIM, they were always about a social engineering attack onto the carrier's staff to replace the (e?)SIM associated with your account. eSIMs actually do make this easier because instead of the attacker having to show up in person at a store to pick up a physical SIM they can skip that step and do the whole process online.
> simply removed from a stolen phone like physical sims
If this is an attack vector you care about, you can enable a SIM PIN. In fact, this also works with eSIM if you really want to. But beware, doing so means once a phone reboots it will not have a data connection so things like Find My iPhone/etc won't work.
I asked my provider to issue a new e-sim that I could use in another phone, but it asked me to verify my id by sending me a text message I couldn't receive because I didn't have a phone.
I couldn't buy a new phone without a new sim, because I had forgotten the pin of the card I needed to use, and the pin was visible on a website that was protected with 2FA.
So I bought a physical sim card from my provider shop (using my last physical 10 euros), then went to a used iphone reseller, who let me setup the phone before paying, so that I could use the phone to actually pay for it.
It was not fun
The QR code you get when you purchase an eSIM is merely an access token to initiate the provisioning process. Some carriers may make these single-use, or attach extra restrictions such as fees if you want to get a new one, or restrictions they themselves don't know about like that you must be on an IP from your carrier's home country to reach the provisioning server (good luck debugging that if you're not already aware of it - and no, on-device VPNs won't save you as the OS will not use your VPN for this traffic).
Even the mechanism that allows you to move an eSIM from one iPhone to another requires carrier involvement, which they have to support (internally I don't believe it moves anything, instead merely requesting a new SM-DP code in the background and sending that to the new phone). It doesn't work for all carriers.
Oh and you already need to have some existing IP connection to provision the eSIM in the first place, so first-time provisioning is tricky. I'm sure there is a workaround for it, but again carrier support varies.
TLDR: it allows the carrier to interfere when provisioning or moving the eSIM which carriers can and do take advantage to make the process more costly/painful and discourage easily using alternative carriers.
1. Create a problem.
2. Sell the solution.
3. Profit.
Gotta say it would drive me nuts to have a phone that didn't lay flat and couldn't therefore be put down safely on the edge of the sink etc.
That would definitely be a problem.
I seriously don't understand this (common) complaint that I see. If anything a slight tilt makes the screen a bit more readable.
Segmentation. More features aren't material if you don't use them. And plenty of people (not me) habitually charge their phones to the extent that carrying around extra battery just in case is sort of like having a 400-mile EV for grocery runs.
Still looking for a phone as light as the Pixel 5 at 151 grams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_8850/8890
The Motorola Razr of course was part of this trend too:
Not enough for me to upgrade, but I would consider this one if I were buying this year
The rumors are also strong for a folding iPhone next year, in which case this may just be them using the same thinness work they already had to do for that. A foldable would prompt me to upgrade
iPhone Ass Pro, for those with a larger ass.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MH004ZM/A/iphone-air-bump...
It's $39, but if it's indeed rigid as the description implies, then it may be a legit option for drop protection without compromising the thinness.
I know Apple is super successful and will have another great set of quarters, but this is quite disappointing.
One could argue that a lot of 50-ish people have pro max with iphone 5-ish screen estate.
Small screens ain’t gonna happen
I can't be the only one.
The only thing I see a possible issue is dealing with camera features. But, you know, tech companies should actually innovate stuff... I know radical.
I comfortably use pro max with one hand: phone rests on the pinky at the point where usb-c hole is.
Reachibility (gester of swiping down on home indicator) brings UI half screen down to reach upper regions.
Some use pop sockets.
That means you still get to see fairly good at short distances.
People with ordinary presbyopia can’t see shit at arms length and closer.
The way you know you need your glasses is when your arm’s length isn’t enough to move your phone farther (not closer) to see.
The old people you know need a better optometrist. (Hint: progressive lenses.)
Because above all, the iPhone is a vending machine owned by Apple and paid for by you.
(Yes, to be fair, there is more to this new phone than just "impossibly thin".)
Yes. I have at least two co-workers that have stated (we will see if they follow through) that they are going to move from their current phones (13 Pro and 15 Pro) to the Air because of the thinness.
It's 0.16mm thicker than the Air. I've got to admit it was surprisingly pleasant to hold.
I even did a low key bend test and it did not bend, but I literally had store security walk up to me and ask me not to do that.
So I suppose there already is a phone with an analogous form factor.
It just spurred the rage that we still haven't adopted metric in the US -- even after spending a good chunk of the 1970s learning it in school and being promised metric would be the new measurement standard.
In all seriousness everybody still probably needs to learn it in school, because the scientific literature is entirely in metric. Even papers authored by Americans and published by, e.g., the American Chemical Society, all use µg/mg/g/kg and µm/mm/cm/m for their measurements. If you don't have an intuitive understanding of those measurements, you can run into visualization problems.
(It wasn't even told to me that it was the default for most of the world. It was disappointing to learn later how much resistance to metric there was in the U.S.)
And then Reagan showed up just in time to save us from that Commie nonsense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Metric_Board
Are you suggesting they did this because they expected it to bend because it was thin? If so, I doubt it. Regardless of thickness, I suspect security would ask someone not to physically damage their devices.
Their process seems pretty similar to their approach with unibody MacBooks or the original MacBook Air, both of which were introduced long before imitators were their primary competition.
One qualifier would be "at scale and profitably."
But for more detail, yes, the situation has changed over time and probably the reasoning has changed over time.
McGee spends a lot of time on the difficulty for Apple R&D to keep up with Apple design bureau's demands. To the point that Apple execs arrive at decisions that for the sake of internal peace and meeting deadlines, Apple Industrial Design is not to make arbitrary demands (like they used to) and must consider manufacturing realities. Which still leaves Manufacturing struggling at every step to keep up. So - usually - manufacturing is very much pushed to the edge of what's possible by Design. Even though Apple teach China phone manufacturing (again "at scale and profitably"). Design are the ones pushing. Whether Design is really concerned with keeping ahead of competitors... is not explicitely told by Apple people. They do seem to love "impossible". In my recollection, it's more McGee's observations and conclusion.
Apple mainland China companies competition has also been a widely varying quantity. In part due to Chinese fashion trends and in part due to Apple political difficulties in China (which come and go). Underlying should be "at scale and profitably": Apple rightly shouldn't care if a few exotic phones come out. That wouldn't matter to their bottom line. They are described as caring when there is a flood of matching phones coming out - and even then with some latency.
Overall btw, "Apple in China" is fantastic. With massive amounts of local color and "story viewed from the Apple China people's side". Lots of bits that were missed if you mostly followed Apple from the side of what we see in the US.
So, we can buy this iPhone Air in a few years!
Which will mean they remove all buttons and connectors making it annoying as hell.
But it'll be cool.
As far as I can tell from the announcement, they're focusing on content creators. Since I don't stream and am not an Instagrammer, it's irrelevant to me. Selling me one of these cameras is just a waste. I don't even know how to make the phone use the second (or third) camera.
The most annoying thing on the phone is wobbling when it is on flat surface thanks to lenses sticking out.
Battery life is alright. I can get 2-3 days of life from it with light use. If I am using it a little bit more, then it is barely one day of battery life.
And compared to iPhone Air it has real SIM slot.
For this they could engineer a good plastic but it wouldn't sell because it wouldn't feel "premium" enough. So instead, we get nonsense like that. And it suits them well because the thing is that much more likely to break so they get more chances to have the customer pay for repair or phone change.
Win-Win for them, lose-lose for the customer, basically everything Apple is about currently.
Recent breakthroughs have produced multilayer metalenses only ~0.5 mm thick that can focus unpolarized broadband light across several discrete wavelengths.
Dual-Pixel Coded Aperture (CADS): End-to-end learned amplitude masks on dual-pixel sensors have shown >1.5 dB PSNR gains in all-in-focus images and 5–6% depth accuracy improvements in DSLR, endoscope, and dermoscope prototypes.
Color-Coded Aperture Imaging: Single-lens, single-frame depth sensing via color-coded apertures has been demonstrated on DSLR and preliminary smartphone modules with depth map extraction sufficient for basic AR and portrait modes.”
I have this recurring vision of what could have been if we never lost Steve before the industry went whole hog in on the camera bump fad. It goes something like this:
SCENE: Steve Jobs' office on the eve of the iPhone 7 release
"Hey Steve here's the new prototype for iPhone 7, we think you're going to love it!"
Steve picks up the phone, fumbles it around for a moment, flips it over, and runs his index finger over the camera bump
"You're fired. Now, you" points to another engineer "Get rid of the bump."
And just like that, we were saved from this nightmare. Alas, the world is shit now and no one cares about anything anymore. But I can say without question he would have never allowed it.
The argument is that you shouldn't need to pick one or the other. They got us used to the bump because it is cheaper and simpler for them to build. The same with literally everything now. No more striving for excellence, it's just "what can we normalize and force people to put up with so we don't have to fix the problem".
It isn’t a problem. That’s why it isn’t “fixed.”
The main issue is weight distribution, although current designs are slightly top heavy anyway.
A less obvious issue is that people would tend to hold the screen vertically while taking photos, which would distort the visual plane of the lenses at the back.
I'm sure both of those could be solved, and a wedge would create something original, instead of the nth iteration of the same ugly wart aesthetic.
You meant to say "14 years old Android phones", right? chuckles
https://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_razr_xt910-pictures-4273.p...
Jobs's "design horse-sense" was also strongly against the screen size you take for granted as well.
Maybe its time to put away these weird hagiographies.
The idea that you're hiring talented people and just firing them like this is not only obscenely anti-worker, its anti-social and a wonderful example of how we worship the worst people. This is someone with a pedigree, able to land an apple job, pass the interviews, work with a team, has mortgage/family/whatever, etc but he upset a sultan sitting on his silk pillow and now must be thrown out on the streets?
Oh and Apple's entire existance hinges on "HP and IBM were too full of fire-happy, stodgy, powerful men who wouldnt let youngin's with ideas flourish" then now Jobs becomes the HP/IBM he and Woz have decried all their careers? What a great way to send your talent off to competitors, scare your existing staff to never take chances, depressing hiring, build a toxic workplace, and send all these people to a startup where they might eat your lunch.
Rather, it would be about their values and vision not aligning with those of the company. The job shouldn't have happened to begin with.
Not that I like this kind of company mind you, but I do understand and see the appeal. The comparisons with a cult that are often drawn have a logic to them. But this whole scenario is also an exaggeration. Somewhat.
> Pedigree...streets
If that pedigree is such a high horse.. I'm sure they'd have no problem joining the company next door.
I be been struggling with the 14 pro's weight. So that would mainly be my interest here.
Also almost certainly less likely to get obsoleted by some AI feature given the higher end GPU cores.
They switched the frame from stainless steel to titanium the next year which made the Pro phones noticeably lighter. And now this year the Pros are aluminum like the non-Pros have been for years, which is also pretty light.
The 3 big camera sensors certainly don't help with the weight either, but the good news is they did seem to recognize they were getting to heavy with the 14 Pro.
Do you have any evidence behind it? I personally would love it, price is the biggest blocker tbh.
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/09/all-of-the-iphone-17-model...
I'd believe this is an area where even a few millimeters of thickness makes a real difference in how much the phone in pocket stands out despite the overall footprint being larger? Will be curious to read once people get their hands on the things.
Ben Thompson (Stratechery) has been documenting for almost a decade that the biggest driver of new phone sales in China is a new form factor.
I’m sure that might be the same in other markets where an iPhone is a status symbol. It’s definitely not one in the US where 60% of phone buyers have iPhones.
[0] https://www.macrumors.com/2025/09/09/iphone-air-esim-china-u...
Most users probably use/need 10% of what a max pro iPhone offers, but they want 100% of the max pro status.
Now they can keep the status without needing to carry a chonker.
I'm debating if I just replace the battery and let this run another year... since the iPhone X I haven't seen any major upgrades still that feel like they'll matter in my day-to-day life.
A flip would be different...
I keep looking at new flagship launches and I keep not seeing any new capability, feature or performance that would make a noticeable difference to me. I replaced the battery myself last year and generally keep the OS clean, not letting app cruft accrue. I'm not a luddite nor am I price sensitive. I remain ready and willing to buy a high-end flagship phone the moment it does anything new I actually care about. It still gets regular security updates even though a couple years ago Samsung stopped updating it to their latest customized version of Android. And despite looking, I still haven't seen any new Android OS or Samsung One UI feature that would matter to me. Bottom line: I don't think it's you or me, I think it's that phones are mature tech and unless you have a specific use case or it breaks, there's just not much reason to upgrade.
Genuine question - maybe I'm too in my own bubble but it seems like iPhone just completely dominates the market and is viewed as the "default" phone, which to me implies status quo, not luxury.
Of course a lot of people can not afford it.
$7.25/hour = $1,160/month for 8 hours of daily work, monday to friday.
iPhone Air costs $1000 according to https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare
In wealthy circles, no. Anywhere else, yes, it’s a thousand-dollar device.
Is it a green bubble or a blue bubble? :)
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2025-economic-we...
$999 is a lot of money.
US net worth at the 25th percentile is >$20k, it’s not the case that 32% of people literally don’t have the wealth to afford a $400 expense.
I definitely agree about them being just about the most banal stupid toy you could spend the money on, but it's still a lot of money to a lot of people despite the cost of basic necessities making it not the huge amount that it used to be. I cringe at paying over $450, considering that every new model of phone since like 2015 hasn't really done anything worth significantly more money.
On the other hand, the cameras on plateaus are real issues because they don't lay normally and the cameras are very easy to scratch.
(Edit: Should have refreshed I see. Feel free to ignore.)
The reason for the Max Pro is the larger screen and better battery life
> chonker
Can't see the specs for the iPhone Air but it looks much larger than my SE 2022. I wish they would bring that form factor back. Obviously not as powerful as bigger iPhones so not useful for posing purposes.
They want thin phones for the same reason they like fast cars. The same reason that ice cream tastes good.
Why do (some) people like jazz music?
Although, I'm not a big phone user though, mainly use it when I'm outside of the house. In the house, I'll just use my laptop.
For reference, the 13 mini has a 5.4" screen, and the new-gen iPhones are 6.3", 6.5", and 6.8". Pixel 10 is 6.3" as well.
iPhone 5 was the most perfect size ever and was about 0.3" shorter than the 13 mini, though it had a much smaller screen due to the bezel: https://www.gsmarena.com/size-compare-3d.php3?idPhone1=5685&...
Apple offering is underwhelming to say the least and way too expensive for my use case.
I want to go Android anyway, I'm too disillusioned with Apple currently, I'm tired of dealing with their predatory behavior. But there aren't a lot of decent options there as well but at least you can get it much cheaper, so that's something, I guess.
Previously Apple was the provider of hardware which made the right compromise to allow specific/focused use case, they called it "taste" in a sea of nonsense with bullshit "features". But now it feels like Apple has joined in on the nonsense and is actually leading the pack; which is why the price feels bad. If you are going to make the same crap as everyone else with the same set of bad compromises, I'm not going to overpay for it.
I think this is why Apple "AI" got so much backlash. If they didn't make it or at least market it as heavily as they, did it would have been fine, but it was just the same crap as everyone else, just worse and more expensive. They could have released the exact same phone, just shaving a 100 dollar and have been acclaimed and made more money that way I believe.
Source: https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone-13-mi...
1. Flip one switch in settings to enable sideloading
2. Download and open an APK
3. Flip one more switch (which you get automatically redirected to and it's highlighted at least on Samsung phones) the first time installing from whichever app source (Chrome/FDroid/etc).
4. Click install
Other than step 1, the user is led through the process via prompts, and step 3 only has to be done once per source. i.e. the first time you install from FDroid, after that you just click install without any nags or scare screens.
As far as I remember the "enable sideloading" switch in settings has always been a thing, and the per source setting was added at least 5+ years ago.
Marketing will create hype and desire and the feeling of exclusiveness. Those will lead to sales.
Not every big change is an actual innovation. A lot if just engineering sales via these methods, which aren't very different than fashion, jewelry, or luxury cars.
I might get one because I'm always a bit forced to follow the curve and can't afford to look 'backwards' or 'old fashioned' to stakeholders in the workplace, people in my life, etc who's good side I need to stay on who believe in the above dynamic.
Umm, smaller? We don't need thinner, we need smaller.
I do hope that the metal they are using is on the grippier side (like the black 16 Pros, as opposed to the 16s)
Personally, I think thin is just "omg look at my engineering". blah blah.
I found the (expensive!) bullstrap case to be helpful - thin and slippery enough to slide out of a pocket easily, well engineered to protect the camera.
But really, I think the iphone 13 mini was the most useful/practical application of apple's engineering.
I think a mini-sized 3-camera bulge phone would be great.
If you really want protection, the screen is still more fragile than the camera.
The thickness should be from the front to the back of the camera lens, not to the thinnest point they can find.
"Wild" seems like a stretch. I feel like it shouldn't be too hard to believe that some people drop their phones occasionally, and it's a reasonable concern when it's likely to be with you everywhere you go.
Edit: sibling comment is correct, sketchy pockets of athletic shorts are a major offender. Actually it bothers me way more when my car keys fall out of those.
But a thinner phone still means the end result is thinner in a case.
I didn't understand the appeal of thin phones until I used them in cases.
Average thickness phone + case = bulky phone.
Thin phone + case = normal thickness phone.
That's what makes them great. It's normal thickness with all the protection.
It’s light and the thinness is just fun. I’m not putting a case on it. And I really don’t understand why a phone needs to sit flat on a table—if anything, the angle is a plus.
That said, it looks like the clear case for the air has a plastic ridge to protect the lens and keep the phone from wobbling
I'd even go with a millimeter or two thicker to have the backplate attached by screws and the battery easily user replacable after a few years.
It stands to reason the iFold/iPaper/iSheet/whatever Apple will call it is drawing closer now that Samsung and several Chinese brands have pretty much solved the design for Apple.
signed, apple CFO
the argument that the bump defeats the purpose of a thin phone is only true if you're trying to squeeze it through a narrow gap in a rigid object.
I don't have much call for most of the camera system, and my battery life on my Pro is just fine. I have plenty of chargers typically, and for emergencies or times I know I'm going to be out I could potentially get the battery pack.
I basically never use cases on my iPhone, and at most will maybe use an ultra-thin one or some sort of structure adhered to the plateau just to make it flat across so as to not rock on a table.
Now this, good people, is a real use case. If it seems like an edge case to you, I guarantee Apple’s design and product people know of — and optimize for — use cases much more rare.
Like I get there are some people who maybe use the thing as an actual camera and they suddenly need to download tens if not hundreds of gigabytes of media off the phone but like.....I guess it's just not the phone for them? And like you said the Pro supports USB3 speeds so what's the issue? 5gbps is really not fast enough?
Out of curiosity, are there any phones from any manufacturer that support USB4 and can actually transfer data at more than 5gbps?
I'm curious who needs more battery life than the iPhone air will provide? Every single person I know of commutes to and from work daily either in a car where they can charge their phone or to a desk that has a charger (wired or wireless).
The iPhone Air is rated for 27 hours of videoplayback. Let's say it works for a QUARTER of that, its still 7 hours of playback.
What kind of people are away from a charger for more than 7 hours who also only consume content for those 7 hours on a regular basis?
What kind of individuals are these? Please explain
I do want to see how the advertised battery life stacks up against the real-world observation. It might be enough, it might not be, let's see :)
Isn’t the phone not being used when hiking?
Are they live streaming the hike that they need such insane battery life?
I hike and bike ride with my kids very often. Other than the odd picture and video I have my phone in my pocket during those hikes. The battery barely drains
If I have a long train ride, like 2 hours, and I read on it, it'll usually use about 50% of the battery in that duration.
If I go somewhere new, and use google maps a lot to navigate around, it'll last about 3 hours total.
If I go somewhere with bad cellular signal, it constantly fights to connect and drains incredibly quickly, often in a matter of 2 hours.
The Air looks like it's supposed to have a battery that's about 30% larger than the mini's, and the mini is wildly insufficient for regular use.
We'll use my phone to take photos and videos on the hike. Never ran into battery issues. And it's Canada, so hikes are in cold-ish temperatures.
You aren't curious at all. You have formed an opinion. :)
Apple recognizes the deficiency, hence they created the battery accessory which they would love to up-self.
Step 1: Reduce battery life
Step 2: Sell battery accessory, profit.
I can have an opinion that phones have sufficient battery life AND be curious what kind of person needs more than the provided battery life
The example of someone hiking so far does not make sense since a phone is idle when hiking and will last the entire time easily
I have a 16 Pro and every so often something runs in the background that destroys my battery in half a day. I still don’t know what it is. The settings don’t make it clear.
I haven’t complained about the battery life on the Air, but I’d rather have a bigger battery to the point of eliminating the camera bump, than having a marginally thinner phone that shoves everything in a bigger relative bump.
Upgrading to a bigger battery won’t solve whatever is draining your battery
On days with normal battery usage, how is having more battery life ever a negative? Long travel days, which may also have heavy map usage, leave users outside of normal patterns and often with unpredictable access to charging. Having a long battery life would ease stress around those days and be preferable to carrying a battery bank.
I usually spend my days outside, roaming the city, sitting in parks and cafes. I have a 13mini and started to carry a lightweight power bank in my backpack because it tends to run empty before I get back home, which is a problem with electronic ticket for public transport.
A lot of people will also simply prefer the convenience of not having to plug their phone in more often than necessary. They have it in their backpack or purse, which makes it extra inconvenient to think of taking it out just to charge plus needing a cable and charger in multiple places, compared to the evenings when you may remove multiple items from it.
1. Biggest is that Apple can finally tell if people really want a thinner phone (I don’t). Maybe once they find out the answer, they can finally start using the space more productively.
2. They mentioned local LLM in passing, but this is the biggest possible selling point of the executives actually back real work on making them consumer-level easy. Have a LLM marketplace. Let users sub-train with their own ideas and local data. Enable users to privately and safely port their personal LLMs to their next Apple. Apple has the best most efficient hardware available and they have it in millions of pockets. It’s about time they use that to become the dominant phone and personal device maker. Instead of focusing on anorexic phones.
I've seen one guy attach an ECG lead to the back so that he could lay the phone down without the camera part touching the surface. As a bonus you could spin the device on it.
Cant a case do this for you?
I'd be at least INTERESTED in seeing what my iPhone 15 Pro Max would look like without a case and with a built-in battery that made it not have a camera hump.
The iPhone 14 Pro was noticeably heavy, but the switch to titanium the following year made the 15 Pro feel way lighter. The only difference was 206 grams -> 187 grams, but you'd swear it was 25% lighter.
But yeah, I know you are right and the market has spoken. I accept this however begrudgingly.
The apple watch ultra is thicker and overall bigger than the regular one in the name of better battery life, and people that don't need that buy the regular one. Win win!
It's going to be so painful if the answer is yes.
They would need to sell two otherwise equivalent new models att the same time where one is thicker for that.
Not small enough to be worth the tradeoffs though.
The GSM Arena review is mostly about the confusion of whether it should still be considered a phone at this size. Ultimately they decide it's just too damn big for a phone.[1].
It had a 5" screen.
I’m probably just holding it wrong.
Instead you are stuck with the OS, and security updates, that were out a year before you bought it. And you can't install LineageOS either.
I’ve said this many times when this came up.
The Mini didn’t fail because it was too small. It failed because it wasn’t small enough.
I want a small phone that I can use single-handedly. A smaller screen is a tradeoff. The Mini had the disadvantage of a smaller screen plus the disadvantage of not being usable with a single hand. Because of that, I never bought one - if I’m going to be handicapped anyway, I’d rather have a larger screen.
The size is fine. But why they gotta handicap cameras?
All I want is a mini-sized phone with max's camera. Is that so much to ask for?
At this point I'm strongly considering ditching the iPhone and going Watch + Fujifilm Camera. Maybe keep an old phone at home to manage the watch.
Give me 3" iPhone. That would be mini.
This is a very funny typo, considering the topic at hand.
But yeah, I think I stopped being happy with phone sizes when they started going beyond 4" or so. It's hilarious to me that they can make a phone that's ~5.5" and call it "mini".
I'm an Android guy, and had high hopes for https://smallandroidphone.com/, but the guy who was originally driving it is running his resurrected Pebble company now, and there's been basically no useful activity in the Discord for at least a couple years now, so I assume it's dead.
I've never seen a preference like this, in real life. Usually the thing closest to what you want is the preferred option. You're suggesting there's a hump in the preference curve, pushing people away from their preference, buying a larger phone than the smallest, when they "want" a smaller one.
I have trouble believing this is true. Do you have any other example of this type of preference curve? I suppose the "uncanny valley" may be one, but that seems more understandable.
You have absolutely no idea how many people are curious which iPhone I have
The correlation I saw a while back during one of the debates about the trend towards phablets was it depended a lot on your usage patterns.
Are you someone who tends to use your phone while sitting down? Larger form factor
Are you someone who tends to use your phone standing up, especially while walking? Smaller form factor.
Yeah, I've noticed this. Many women also wear clothing where they either have no pockets at all, or the pockets are more decorative than functional, small enough that a truly small phone would have trouble fitting (certainly not the 5.5" iPhone "mini", which is hardly mini at all).
Back to reality, Apple sells close to 200 billion worth of iPhones per year, so yeah, maybe they know what they're doing?
They could build a small town with all things you can imagine, cars, cinemas, hospitals, schools, whatever then get people to live there for months and use whatever new device prototypes they plan to launch a year later, and have an army of analysts even looking at their damn micro-expressions each time they pick up their phones in different ways and all of that might come down to like 50 million a year, which is like 0.05% of their revenue.
Apple is not anymore a startup where two/three guys make major decisions out of intuition (they ousted Ive because of that), again, this is a 2 trillion dollar company, they're not just vibing, lmao.
I'm sorry, but the market has spoken. And there's Android phones in that form factor if you really want it.
[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/21/iphone-13-mini-unpopula...
I'm genuinely interested. Which ones?
Air could’ve been the perfect mini replacement. Same width, but higher.
But no.. why get the air when the pro has so much more of everything, and is only 100 more
[edit] I'll answer my own question. Nobody is going to replace an iPhone because it drops from 21 days battery to 14 days battery, but they probably will replace an iPhone that drops from 21 hours battery to 14 hours.
Compare the New iPhone Models - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45186294 - Sept 2025 (95 comments)
iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45186044 - Sept 2025 (42 comments)
Apple Debuts iPhone 17 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45186023 - Sept 2025 (104 comments)
https://gsmarena.com/vivo_x5max-pictures-6865.php
Apparently the "thin phone" trend is coming back.
---
### Scene: Apple Store, Santa Monica
*Larry* walks in, holding his old iPhone with a cracked screen. He approaches a blue-shirted *Apple Genius*.
*Larry:* So I hear you got this new iPhone Air. Thinnest phone ever, huh? Five-point-six millimeters. What is this, a phone or a Wheat Thin?
*Genius:* It’s our most advanced design yet. Stronger, lighter—
*Larry:* Stronger? If it’s so strong, why is it thinner than a Ritz cracker? You ever eaten a Ritz cracker? Crumbles right in your hand! That’s what I’m gonna be holding here. Crumbs! Phone crumbs in my pocket!
*Genius:* Actually, it’s titanium. Aerospace grade.
*Larry:* Oh! Aerospace. Yeah, good. Because when I’m playing Sudoku on the toilet, I really want NASA technology under my thumbs. Very important. “Houston, I got a number two problem.”
*Genius:* The new 48-megapixel Fusion camera—
*Larry:* Fusion? What am I, splitting atoms now? I just want to take a picture of a sandwich. I don’t need the Manhattan Project in my pocket. And the front camera’s square? Square! Cameras are round, wheels are round, even faces are round. You make it square, now I look like SpongeBob in every selfie.
*Genius:* Well, the square sensor lets you take landscape photos while holding your phone vertically.
*Larry:* Vertically? Vertically?! Oh, thank you, Apple, you’ve saved me from rotating my wrist. What a terrible burden it’s been. Centuries of humanity struggling, and finally Apple says, “Don’t move your wrist, Larry, we’ll do it for you.” Unbelievable.
*Genius:* It also has all-day battery life.
*Larry:* All-day? What’s “all day”? My day? Your day? A raccoon’s day? Be specific! At 11:58 p.m. the phone dies and you go, “Oh, sorry Larry, guess your day’s over!” I still got two episodes of Columbo left, pal!
*Genius:* It’s also eSIM only.
*Larry:* Oh, fantastic. No physical SIM. So if I lose signal, I can’t even take it out, blow on it, do the old Nintendo trick. I just stare at my \$1,000 “air” sandwich and pray. That’s the feature? Praying?
*Genius:* It starts at \$999—
*Larry:* Nine-ninety-nine! For a phone that could slip between two couch cushions and vanish forever. You should sell it with a metal detector. “Find your iPhone Air before it suffocates under the ottoman!”
(Larry storms out, muttering.)
*Larry:* Thin phone, thick price. What a world.
---
Want me to *write another one where Larry’s actually at the launch keynote*, interrupting Tim Cook from the audience like a heckler?
At the end of the day, I want future phones to be a A4 piece of paper that I can fold up like ... a piece of paper. If it means dumping stupid billions to shave sub millimeters of generations... then I guess that's the price to pay.
I wonder if they still still have a stupid camera notch on the device. They is no point (to me) have a thin phone even you end up having a 5mm notch the size of your phone
I found a deal on a Moto Edge 2024 and it’s fantastic. It’s so light and compact vs the Moto G Power, and still can go two full days no problem. The camera is excellent as well, which was my only real gripe with the G phones.
It can plug into my USB-C monitor and act like a Chromebook (more or less). I play Minecraft with my kids this way.
With something like https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HRY02LL/A/anker-maggo-pow..., you get a magsafe battery that doubles the life of an iPhone and can be independently recharged, and is so slim that I can put it in my pocket attached to my iPhone and not notice.
It’s gonna be the iPhone Voyager.
It's not going to last you all week though. That's not going to just be thick, it's going to be a cube heavy enough to double up as a weapon.
I'd been more excited if they brought back the 3.5 mm audio jack.
I have an iPhone 11 which also has a camera bump and the experience of typing while the phone is on a flat surface is laughably annoying. For a company that prides itself on design aesthetics, it is honestly an embarrassing miss.
Since it costs $1000-$1400, I'm going to need a nice big thick ruggedized case around it.
The whole experience left me very disappointed with AppleCare+ and the Genius Bar in general.
Why the heck didn't they have the part in stock given that I made an appointment several days in advance? (You go through a little menu saying exactly which part is broken, rather than a free-form text field, so their systems _should_ have known that they'd need a replacement back glass in my color.) Why didn't they tell me before I hauled myself in for my appointment that they wouldn't have the part in stock? Why does it take 9 days to get replacements? Why didn't the first Genius tell me that other stores in town had the part in stock? Why didn't they have the backup device in stock or warn me in advance of my second appointment?
I worry that Apple has gotten complacent with service because they can get away with it.
https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/iphone/iPhone...
Fiiiinally something thinner than X820 !
For the demanding blowhole. Now available in pink.
That is...weird? Why would the Air's design prevent that?
At least in my daily use, it means nothing. I've also never seen speeds like that when I've tested the phone.
On my current iPhone 13 Pro I can get about 100 Mbps in San Francisco.
When Camera Control was introduced on iPhone 16, Apple moved the 5G mmWave antenna to pass through the back glass of the iPhone, that way it was no longer something you needed to see.
Now though, with iPhone 17 Pro – that can’t work. The iPhone is now largely made of aluminum, requiring Apple to revert to an old design technique: a glass cutout for 5G mmWave passthrough
No.
> For life’s busier days, snap on the iPhone Air MagSafe Battery. It’s easy to hold and it fits comfortably in your pocket.
Oh fuck off.
You know what else is "easy to hold" and "fits comfortably in your pocket"? A normal size phone.
That "cross body strap" is $60, by the way, with a $0.60 BOM. Just PET plastic.
Amazing marketing wank.
Aside from Macs for development I've never been an iPhone person but I'm seeing this like ooh. But no I'm good with my $160 motorolla android phone, no shade against this phone, good enough for my needs.
I do wish Android phones had lidar
Congrats to Apple for finally designing out Broadcom and vertically integrating the wireless chip
The Aqara Hub M100 is a nice cheap Thread border router.
This will be a nice upgrade for bi / motor - cyclists who like to mount their phone / google maps on their handlebars!
Another data point, Googles own phone ad right now is literally along the lines of ‘feel like your existing phone never changes’, clearly a dig at Apple’s product atrophy.
TouchID is also still sorely missed, and I will die on that hill. I'm on a 2022 SE hoping they change their mind one day. FaceID is a repellent experience.
A few people say it very loudly and nobody else does.
People do think that being able to use the phone with just one hand is cool, but most people, even small-handed people, like to have a big screen to watch stuff on.
Also last I checked the "mini" phones weren't particularly mini, phones just got bigger.
I for one hate how even the 17 pro is creeping up in size compared to the 15 pro.
Smaller phones as an idea isn't the problem here. Companies just don't want to make equivalent smaller phones. Making a new phone every single year is a stupid trend that causes min-max effects. A good small phone will eat into profits that's harder to make up in a yearly cycle. People will not buy nerfed smaller phones which is a positive feedback cycle.
(Also to those who say not enough people wanted a mini phone to be worth producing: I submit the case of Prego chunky pasta sauce. Not many people want a chunky pasta sauce, but you sell a whole lot more pasta sauce in total if you sell both regular and chunky pasta sauce. Malcolm Gladwell has a TED talk about this.)
Definitely feel like thicker and longer battery is better. Heavier feels nice.
Super fun. Titanium printing
As part of our efforts to reach carbon neutrality by 2030, iPhone Air does not include a power adapter or EarPods. Included in the box is a USB‑C Charge Cable that supports fast charging and is compatible with USB‑C power adapters and computer ports.
What a joke. Recycled design from 6/11 is breakthrough in Apple world
Does anyone know it? Was it in announcement video?
I'm sure Apple's official word on this is battery life is sufficient for a couple of hours of untethered stand-by. I'm just questioning the wisdom of the naming convention. They trained their user community to understand that "air" means low-CPU power / low battery life / thinner package. Are there enough potential customers who will prioritize thin form factor over usability?
Nevermind. I just answered my own question.
Narretz•5h ago
googlryas•5h ago
infecto•5h ago
spike021•5h ago
infecto•5h ago
moepstar•5h ago
Hm, i'd consider it (if i was upgrading yet again).
Why? My 15 Pro (not-Max) gets way too hot way too fast doing basically nothing and it p*sses me off - so, i'd rather not (yet?) take a bet if the new 17 Pro (Max) does better with an entire new thermal design - considering _something_ is _always_ off with new Apple hardware designs, starting with the iPhone 4...
butlike•5h ago
TulliusCicero•5h ago
When companies try smaller phones, like the iPhone 13 mini, they don't seem to sell very well. So the companies stop making them.
RandallBrown•1h ago