The smaller screen sizes doesn't seem to be something that anyone really tests for anymore. If I have to lookup something on my phone it's pretty often that I just give up in anger. Websites will have a header, and maybe a footer or some sticky element and even on the iPhone SE2/3 the result is having maybe 25% of the screen for actual text/content.
In the review the author write:
> The iPhone Air is the perfect solution to this, its screen size sits right in the middle of the normal Pro and Pro Max sized phones
That's probably true for them, and a lot of other people, but I'd argue that it's WAY to large. The Air is larger in all dimensions, except it's 1,7mm thinner, it even weighs more than the SE. It's also larger than the iPhone 17, but lighter and thinner. I don't really get the need for the phone to be thinner, if you're just going to make it larger in all other directions.
To some extend I get the larger screen, because it's just because it's not made for me. I don't use my phone for much other than calls and a few apps, but for a ton of people it's their only computing device, so a slightly larger screen makes a difference. I just wish that Apple would also make a device for people who just needs their smartphone or the occasional parking app and mobile payments, but who doesn't care about the browser, video and to some extend the camera.
Thank you! Even Apple seems to forget the SE, I frequently see UI elements in Apples own software overlap, so I think it's even rarere to see 3rd parties care.
From holding both I prefer the iPhone 17 over the Air when it comes to dimensions. Weight is roughly the same. And the 17 has so much more features. Plus the 17 is only slight more expensive. And it has the better aluminum housing.
Sure, but again comparing it to the SE, which I consider the better form factor, it's 1.7mm thinner. Unless you count the camera bump, in which case the SE is thinner.
The SE also have a small camera bump ~2mm, so 9.3mm max thickness, compared to the Air at 11.3mm. The Air suddenly becomes a chunky phone, especially if, like most, you put on a cover.
All phones need to do phone-stuff that uses power, and (for any given generation of tech) battery capacity scales with volume.
If all else is the same, then: A thinner phone has less internal volume for things like the battery than a thicker phone does. Perhaps if it had the XY dimensions of an SE at this thickness, it would have bad battery life. (We all remember phones with bad battery life, yeah? It was an awful time.)
But if it's also made wider/taller ("bigger"), then: There's more volume for a battery.
And, of course: This increases the frontal area.
But because people make fun of bezels, this means that the screen should also increase in size accordingly.
And so we have it: The iPhone Air. It's both big and skinny, it does all the usual phone stuff without giant garish bezels, and the battery life is pretty OK (instead of terrible).
I had a Mini 13, and traded it for a 17Pro. I thought I’d be missing the form factor -and I do, but not much. The 17 definitely feels “clunkier,” especially with its Casekoo, but I now find that comforting. I’ve dropped it, several times, and it hasn’t a scratch.
I wish Apple had released a Mini Pro. Aim at the high end and give it the top CPU and the better camera. And quit making the thin part thin — just make the whole body as thick as the camera bumps or even 0.5mm thicker to protect the camera lenses a little bit (and use the added volume for more batter capacity).
> Many say they want small phones and manual transmissions but then don't show up.
I wonder if this is some kind of enthusiast bias where owners of these niche products love them so much they run them into the ground so the demand slumps
I prefer manual transmissions and take care of my cars so I am not out there buying a new car as often as other folk. I suspect people who find a phone they really love aren’t trading it in every couple of years like most people.
I mean, why would you stop using a device you care for, especially when the segment is shrinking. An older manual transmission is probably just better than a newer one that they don’t make as many of.
I can't say much about maintaining older cars because I lease and that's a different topic. The idea is romantic, but my circumstances are what they are.
It comes down to economies of scale for manufacturers. If anything, the outliers like the Minis or 6-speeds should be priced much higher than regular offerings, but the general perception is that something named a Mini or something you have to row on your own should be less expensive. I'd love me an iPad mini Pro, I'd pay around $700-800, but how many of us are there for Apple to bother?
Exactly this. And the profit would be huge compared to any Mac. I suspect Apple dropped it just because they're making even more from selling oversized and over-specced phones.
Yeah, they probably lost almost zero customers by cutting the mini from the lineup. The people buying iPhones, in my experience, tend to just pick another iPhone. So they could simplify manufacturing, testing and so on and still sell the same number of phone, just more profitable ones.
I have thoughts on the Air and all other iPhone models: They're too large. The iPhone 4 was perfectly sized and we have the technology now to build a super powerful phone of that size. I simply don't use my phone for anything that requires a larger screen. Smaller screens also encourages better UI design.
> The ultrawide lens is not one I used a ton on previous iPhones, so outside of macro mode I don’t really miss it. I’m surprised though that I really miss the telephoto lens. There’s so many options where I want to see something that’s further away, like something when watching sports, or even a cool bird, and cropping in on the main sensor is such a far cry from a 5x telephoto lens.
I think this is a situation where the enthusiasts care more about the telephoto (for intentional photographic compositions), but the mainstream user base uses the Ultrawide more (for inside shots, group photos, etc) - so Apple caters to the latter, to the dismay of the former.
(the clear wide > tele > ultrawide hierarchy of optical/sensor quality doesn't help either)
> Camera quality feels as good as ever, it’s apparently not as good a main sensor as the Pro iPhones but I can’t really tell. It still has that distinctly over-processed look plaguing modern smartphones
Same here - photography-minded users hate the over processed look, but the general population must like them, otherwise there's no way that manufacturers would persist doubling down on it year-after-year.
For a while now I've been working on a Bayer RAW only pro camera app (https://bayercam.app) specifically because I'm a photography nerd and care about full control, but I realize it's a pretty niche thing.
It's Bayer RAW: not yet demosaicked sensor information from a single exposure, without any of the extra steps you get shooting a format like HEIC/JPEG (or even ProRAW [0]), where lots of additional processing is done, including combining multiple frames to get extra dynamic range, detail, reduced noise, etc.
There's still some amount of denoising/sharpening/etc happening in the ISP, but essentially shooting Bayer RAW gets you the output of just the small first part of the pipeline, rather than the whole pipeline.
[0] Despite the confusingly similar names, Bayer RAW and Apple ProRAW are quite different - I wrote about it on this page because I frequently get emails from confused customers.
I use an Otter case with my iPhone because I’m team lanyard. My iPhone is like a pet. It never goes out of the house without a leash. Haha. So that adds a little bit of width.
I have the iPhone 15 now, and I use my old iPhone SE for music and podcasts around the house. So I handle both phones daily.
For comfort in my hand, the SE is the perfect size in an Otter case.
If Apple would integrate a lanyard mount, then I’d consider going naked. But never without one.
Got the iPhone Pro Max in beautiful orange... and could't get use to it. It feels heavier that the previous titanium versions, so sold it and got the Air. The lack of telephoto is indeed one of the things i miss the most, but the single speaker is surprisingly good IMO. Really enjoying the design of it, feels like what i remember felt holding one of this really cool iPod nano back in the day, like old Apple magic.
I bought one as it was on sale at the same price as the normal iPhone. Pretty good: 8/10. I have no interest in photos, don't need long battery life, and the lighter/thinner the better.
That said, I'd prefer something smaller but thicker with no protrusions/camera bump at all. I hate the wonkiness of all modern iPhones when sat on a table. I think the last totally flat one was the iPhone 5s!
I really want to try taking one and removing the camera/flash, to produce a bumpless (or at least bump-reduced) version. I'll probably wait for the price to come down some more first, though.
I would love for someone to design a great case with a built in e-reader on the back. Most of the existing ones seem geared for displaying colour photos; I'd like one built for reading, powered by NFC. It should easily sync up with the phone itself to send over articles, books, etc. Bonus if I can write on it.
I’d buy it if it had a SIM-card slot and video-out. Shame those had to be sacrificed for thin-ness. I travel plenty and those features are really nice to have. The regular 17 is better suited for me now.
The iPhone Air is a weird phone but that's mainly because it's a test device in production.
Everything on the Air is something Apple wanted to test ahead of the foldable iPhone. The weird big battery, the single speaker, the mainboard under the bump, and all of the custom silicon they threw at it (from the modem to the WiFi chipsets).
Same reason the 16e existed, not to sell a cheap iPhone, but to test the C1 modem in production as a "finally ready to ship in beta" product they didn't slap the beta label on.
I hate typing on my phone (iPhone 16e). It actually never occurred to me that maybe I'd have a better time with a larger screen. Although I don't remember ever feeling the disdain I have for typing back when I had an iPhone 3GS which had a much smaller screen than the one I have now.
> Although I don't remember ever feeling the disdain I have for typing back when I had an iPhone 3GS
The touch targets on the keyboard are sloppier, and autocorrect has become a lot more opinionated since those days. It may not be the hardware you are noticing
You can try to go even smaller. Hold the world icon in the lower left of your keyboard. Then at the bottom of the pop up, select a left or right side preference and it will squish the keyboard to that side.
Makes one-handed swipe typing much easier, and feels a bit more accurate with swiping too.
> And it’s weird, because with the old wedge-style MacBook Airs this feeling never went away for me, I loved those machines and every time I picked it up I kinda marveled
It's $1378.35 where I live and yes that is including tax, if I have to pay it at the store, I count is as part of the price of the phone.
It's kinda hard to see which use case that would defend that price. It is in the end a consumer device. If you have something like the Pro I can see the point in it being a work device for influencers, photographers and so on and that does help justify the price. Technologically it's amazing, that yes that does to some extend explain the price, but that's just one way of valuing a product. Another is the value you get out of it as a consumer, and at 8999DKK, I'm hard pressed to get how an average consumer would get that much value out of it.
I will never stop yearning for iPhone Mini phone/screen sizes. But I've stopped asking for it because that would be pointless at this point.
The smaller screen sizes doesn't seem to be something that anyone really tests for anymore. If I have to lookup something on my phone it's pretty often that I just give up in anger. Websites will have a header, and maybe a footer or some sticky element and even on the iPhone SE2/3 the result is having maybe 25% of the screen for actual text/content.
In the review the author write:
> The iPhone Air is the perfect solution to this, its screen size sits right in the middle of the normal Pro and Pro Max sized phones
That's probably true for them, and a lot of other people, but I'd argue that it's WAY to large. The Air is larger in all dimensions, except it's 1,7mm thinner, it even weighs more than the SE. It's also larger than the iPhone 17, but lighter and thinner. I don't really get the need for the phone to be thinner, if you're just going to make it larger in all other directions.
To some extend I get the larger screen, because it's just because it's not made for me. I don't use my phone for much other than calls and a few apps, but for a ton of people it's their only computing device, so a slightly larger screen makes a difference. I just wish that Apple would also make a device for people who just needs their smartphone or the occasional parking app and mobile payments, but who doesn't care about the browser, video and to some extend the camera.
> The smaller screen sizes doesn't seem to be something that anyone really tests for anymore.
I do. I write iOS apps.
I just recently stopped using an original SE as my low-end test (because of the OS support). I now use a Mini 12 as my low-end test.
Thank you! Even Apple seems to forget the SE, I frequently see UI elements in Apples own software overlap, so I think it's even rarere to see 3rd parties care.
It’s important to test whacky screen sizes; especially now. I’m not a fan of Liquid Glass’ profligate waste of screen space.
The new iPadOS lets you resize windows into weird shapes, like tall and narrow, or short and wide (or narrow). I think VisionOS is even more flexible.
Also, I want my apps to continue working, when you flip them into landscape. A lot of apps become worthless, in that state.
I understand the new foldable will likely have challenging dimensions.
From holding both I prefer the iPhone 17 over the Air when it comes to dimensions. Weight is roughly the same. And the 17 has so much more features. Plus the 17 is only slight more expensive. And it has the better aluminum housing.
I have an iPhone SE and will hold onto it until the day they make something vaguely commensurate but better.
It isn't like I would be rushing to upgrade anyway but the refusal to cater is tiresome
A thinner phone fits better behind a front pocket wallet.
Sure, but again comparing it to the SE, which I consider the better form factor, it's 1.7mm thinner. Unless you count the camera bump, in which case the SE is thinner.
The SE also have a small camera bump ~2mm, so 9.3mm max thickness, compared to the Air at 11.3mm. The Air suddenly becomes a chunky phone, especially if, like most, you put on a cover.
Maybe it's driven by battery size?
All phones need to do phone-stuff that uses power, and (for any given generation of tech) battery capacity scales with volume.
If all else is the same, then: A thinner phone has less internal volume for things like the battery than a thicker phone does. Perhaps if it had the XY dimensions of an SE at this thickness, it would have bad battery life. (We all remember phones with bad battery life, yeah? It was an awful time.)
But if it's also made wider/taller ("bigger"), then: There's more volume for a battery.
And, of course: This increases the frontal area.
But because people make fun of bezels, this means that the screen should also increase in size accordingly.
And so we have it: The iPhone Air. It's both big and skinny, it does all the usual phone stuff without giant garish bezels, and the battery life is pretty OK (instead of terrible).
I'm a fan but the people have spoken. When placed next to normal or large iPhone, they will always go one of these two
I was a fan of the original 5/SE form factor.
I had a Mini 13, and traded it for a 17Pro. I thought I’d be missing the form factor -and I do, but not much. The 17 definitely feels “clunkier,” especially with its Casekoo, but I now find that comforting. I’ve dropped it, several times, and it hasn’t a scratch.
I finally had to give up my SE2 about a month ago (battery life gone, and with it nearing EOL it didn't seem worth it to get a replacement).
I still miss it so much. Perfect size, and touch ID is so much better than faceID.
The air is the new mini. With the same amount of low sales.
It's under appreciated because of the "Pro" label of the Pro, and because of battery-hell.
The mini didn't even sell that badly, it just sold incredibly poorly for an iPhone. For almost any other brand it would have been a massive success.
I wish Apple had released a Mini Pro. Aim at the high end and give it the top CPU and the better camera. And quit making the thin part thin — just make the whole body as thick as the camera bumps or even 0.5mm thicker to protect the camera lenses a little bit (and use the added volume for more batter capacity).
They should do a Kickstarter and collect pledges :) Many say they want small phones and manual transmissions but then don't show up.
I'm a dyed in the wool Apple sheep, but when I saw this smallish Android phone with a BB style kb, I couldn't resist. Should be shipping next week: https://www.unihertz.com/products/titan-2-elite?srsltid=AfmB...
I would've paid twice the price if Apple made something like this.
> Many say they want small phones and manual transmissions but then don't show up.
I wonder if this is some kind of enthusiast bias where owners of these niche products love them so much they run them into the ground so the demand slumps
I prefer manual transmissions and take care of my cars so I am not out there buying a new car as often as other folk. I suspect people who find a phone they really love aren’t trading it in every couple of years like most people.
I mean, why would you stop using a device you care for, especially when the segment is shrinking. An older manual transmission is probably just better than a newer one that they don’t make as many of.
I can't say much about maintaining older cars because I lease and that's a different topic. The idea is romantic, but my circumstances are what they are.
It comes down to economies of scale for manufacturers. If anything, the outliers like the Minis or 6-speeds should be priced much higher than regular offerings, but the general perception is that something named a Mini or something you have to row on your own should be less expensive. I'd love me an iPad mini Pro, I'd pay around $700-800, but how many of us are there for Apple to bother?
Exactly this. And the profit would be huge compared to any Mac. I suspect Apple dropped it just because they're making even more from selling oversized and over-specced phones.
Yeah, they probably lost almost zero customers by cutting the mini from the lineup. The people buying iPhones, in my experience, tend to just pick another iPhone. So they could simplify manufacturing, testing and so on and still sell the same number of phone, just more profitable ones.
The people buying Minis in my experience don’t pick another iPhone, they just hang on to the Mini.
Same! I still using my iphone 13 mini. Only the camera sucks when I look at somebodys else his holiday pictures on their phones.
I too (like the other repliers) am using a 13 mini. And I likely will replace it with another refurbished one when I must.
I’m still on my iPhone 12 mini, so when I have to eventually replace it, I’ll upgrade to a iPhone 13 mini.
Am on my 11 Pro, its not giving up yet.
Same. I still use the 13 mini, and will probably buy it again refurb when mine dies.
Asking anything from Apple is pointless. Listening to one's customers is for the small and hungry, megacorps don't do that.
I have thoughts on the Air and all other iPhone models: They're too large. The iPhone 4 was perfectly sized and we have the technology now to build a super powerful phone of that size. I simply don't use my phone for anything that requires a larger screen. Smaller screens also encourages better UI design.
[dead]
> The ultrawide lens is not one I used a ton on previous iPhones, so outside of macro mode I don’t really miss it. I’m surprised though that I really miss the telephoto lens. There’s so many options where I want to see something that’s further away, like something when watching sports, or even a cool bird, and cropping in on the main sensor is such a far cry from a 5x telephoto lens.
I think this is a situation where the enthusiasts care more about the telephoto (for intentional photographic compositions), but the mainstream user base uses the Ultrawide more (for inside shots, group photos, etc) - so Apple caters to the latter, to the dismay of the former.
(the clear wide > tele > ultrawide hierarchy of optical/sensor quality doesn't help either)
> Camera quality feels as good as ever, it’s apparently not as good a main sensor as the Pro iPhones but I can’t really tell. It still has that distinctly over-processed look plaguing modern smartphones
Same here - photography-minded users hate the over processed look, but the general population must like them, otherwise there's no way that manufacturers would persist doubling down on it year-after-year.
For a while now I've been working on a Bayer RAW only pro camera app (https://bayercam.app) specifically because I'm a photography nerd and care about full control, but I realize it's a pretty niche thing.
How "unfiltered" raw-ish data can you get on the iPhone in an app?
It's Bayer RAW: not yet demosaicked sensor information from a single exposure, without any of the extra steps you get shooting a format like HEIC/JPEG (or even ProRAW [0]), where lots of additional processing is done, including combining multiple frames to get extra dynamic range, detail, reduced noise, etc.
There's still some amount of denoising/sharpening/etc happening in the ISP, but essentially shooting Bayer RAW gets you the output of just the small first part of the pipeline, rather than the whole pipeline.
[0] Despite the confusingly similar names, Bayer RAW and Apple ProRAW are quite different - I wrote about it on this page because I frequently get emails from confused customers.
https://bayercam.com/understanding-bayer-raw
I use an Otter case with my iPhone because I’m team lanyard. My iPhone is like a pet. It never goes out of the house without a leash. Haha. So that adds a little bit of width.
I have the iPhone 15 now, and I use my old iPhone SE for music and podcasts around the house. So I handle both phones daily.
For comfort in my hand, the SE is the perfect size in an Otter case.
If Apple would integrate a lanyard mount, then I’d consider going naked. But never without one.
I love the iPhone Air. Apple better not discontinue it.
My advice to all iPhone users who want better battery life: either turn off background app refresh or be very selective in which apps can refresh.
Your battery life will improve but nothing in your experience will change.
The iPhone Air is super compelling to me but my Pro iPhone doubles as my camera. The single camera on the Air is too much of a compromise for me.
Hopefully Apple can improve the Air.
Got the iPhone Pro Max in beautiful orange... and could't get use to it. It feels heavier that the previous titanium versions, so sold it and got the Air. The lack of telephoto is indeed one of the things i miss the most, but the single speaker is surprisingly good IMO. Really enjoying the design of it, feels like what i remember felt holding one of this really cool iPod nano back in the day, like old Apple magic.
I bought one as it was on sale at the same price as the normal iPhone. Pretty good: 8/10. I have no interest in photos, don't need long battery life, and the lighter/thinner the better.
That said, I'd prefer something smaller but thicker with no protrusions/camera bump at all. I hate the wonkiness of all modern iPhones when sat on a table. I think the last totally flat one was the iPhone 5s!
I really want to try taking one and removing the camera/flash, to produce a bumpless (or at least bump-reduced) version. I'll probably wait for the price to come down some more first, though.
That's a great idea with the e-reader.
I would love for someone to design a great case with a built in e-reader on the back. Most of the existing ones seem geared for displaying colour photos; I'd like one built for reading, powered by NFC. It should easily sync up with the phone itself to send over articles, books, etc. Bonus if I can write on it.
https://www.inkcase.com/inkcase-for-iphone/
A few options exist in the market
In Australia the price difference between an air and a 17 is only $50 which imo makes it great value.
Describing current phones as slabs? No. Modern phone are in no way too thick
I’d buy it if it had a SIM-card slot and video-out. Shame those had to be sacrificed for thin-ness. I travel plenty and those features are really nice to have. The regular 17 is better suited for me now.
Try the S25 Edge, it has both! Also DEX and a better camera setup too!
For anyone wondering, it’s 5.64 mm thick vs. 8.75 mm for the Pro version.
I moved from max to pro with the 14 -> 17. They’re about the same size ironically so can’t imagine how unwieldy the 17 max is
The iPhone Air is a weird phone but that's mainly because it's a test device in production.
Everything on the Air is something Apple wanted to test ahead of the foldable iPhone. The weird big battery, the single speaker, the mainboard under the bump, and all of the custom silicon they threw at it (from the modem to the WiFi chipsets).
Same reason the 16e existed, not to sell a cheap iPhone, but to test the C1 modem in production as a "finally ready to ship in beta" product they didn't slap the beta label on.
> typing is a joy on the increased size
Huh.
I hate typing on my phone (iPhone 16e). It actually never occurred to me that maybe I'd have a better time with a larger screen. Although I don't remember ever feeling the disdain I have for typing back when I had an iPhone 3GS which had a much smaller screen than the one I have now.
> Although I don't remember ever feeling the disdain I have for typing back when I had an iPhone 3GS
The touch targets on the keyboard are sloppier, and autocorrect has become a lot more opinionated since those days. It may not be the hardware you are noticing
You can try to go even smaller. Hold the world icon in the lower left of your keyboard. Then at the bottom of the pop up, select a left or right side preference and it will squish the keyboard to that side.
Makes one-handed swipe typing much easier, and feels a bit more accurate with swiping too.
I have a 12 mini. I did have an XR briefly but had to send it back because it was terrible - far too large.
When the 12/13 minis stop receiving updates I guess I’ll stop carrying a phone around. Which will actually be a good thing
Nothing (handheld) is as good as typing as my old blackberry curve though. Not even my psion5
Did you get older over the last few years? That might make a difference.
I'd be especially interested if they didn't.
> And it’s weird, because with the old wedge-style MacBook Airs this feeling never went away for me, I loved those machines and every time I picked it up I kinda marveled
I would love one of those again
Not having a second camera is insanity on a smartphone with a four-digit price.
No it isn't, if the price reflects different advancements.
"Not having a OLED display and GPS in a 40k Rolex is insanity".
Good thing it has a three digit price then!
It's $1378.35 where I live and yes that is including tax, if I have to pay it at the store, I count is as part of the price of the phone.
It's kinda hard to see which use case that would defend that price. It is in the end a consumer device. If you have something like the Pro I can see the point in it being a work device for influencers, photographers and so on and that does help justify the price. Technologically it's amazing, that yes that does to some extend explain the price, but that's just one way of valuing a product. Another is the value you get out of it as a consumer, and at 8999DKK, I'm hard pressed to get how an average consumer would get that much value out of it.
"As a bonus my iPhone Pro can’t fit one of those tiny Xteink readers on the back, but my Air can perfectly!"
Seriously, what do you find SO ironic about what they said?
This sarcastic, no-effort criticism on HN these days is seriously annoying.
Because it’d be even thicker with a thicker device?
[flagged]
> I’ve always been a sucker for something novel, so when something as huge as the iPhone had a quirky new model I was really stoked to check it out.
This is just... not a life well-lived.
The whole blog is an ode to consumerism. You will have a hard job convincing people that the good life is found elsewhere though.