A new thin iPhone was the star of Apple’s “Awe Dropping” event aired online Tuesday.
The new Air, at 5.6 millimeters thick, is the thinnest iPhone Apple has ever produced. “It’s unlike anything you’ve ever held before, and it’s packed with features,” John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, said at the event.
Those features include a 6.5-inch display, Apple’s latest A19 Pro processor, a 48 megapixel rear camera, and front-camera support for “Center Stage,” which keeps subjects centered on the screen at all times.
With the A19 Pro chip, Apple is bringing MacBook levels of compute to the iPhone, Ternus said.
“The Air is just as striking in person as it appears in the event video, if not more,” said Anshel Sag, senior analyst for mobility, 5G and XR at Moor Insights & Strategy, a technology analyst and advisory firm based in Austin, Texas.
“It has a premium feel, and they didn’t make any compromises in making it so thin,” he told TechNewsWorld. “It has a faster processor, a faster modem, and way more Apple silicon than any other phone Apple makes today.”
“The Air is a beautiful-looking phone,” added Mark N. Vena, president and principal analyst at SmartTech Research, a technology advisory firm in Las Vegas. “Apple has gone back to the well and is showing its commitment to best-in-class industrial design.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the professional phones next year are going to be equally thin,” he told TechNewsWorld.
Apple’s iPhone Air is available in four polished titanium finishes, blending strength with an elegant mirrored design. (Image Credit: Apple)
The iPhone Air’s ultra-thin build may also hint at where Apple’s design ambitions are headed next. It reflects a shift in priorities toward sleeker, more distinctive hardware across the lineup.
Precursor to Foldables
Ross Rubin, the principal analyst with Reticle Research, a consumer technology advisory firm in New York City, pointed out that the addition of the Air is the first expansion of the iPhone line since the introduction of the Pro line in 2019. “It is sort of a similar move to what Samsung did with the thinner version of the Galaxy S25,” he told TechNewsWorld.
“But it’s not just a story about being a thinner device,” he said. “It’s making sure that it is a very durable device because it has long been a consideration with very thin products that they are fragile.”
“The other thing I think you can take away from this is that thin is also a precursor to foldable,” added Michael Goodman, a senior contributing analyst with Parks Associates, a market research and consulting company specializing in consumer technology products, in Addison, Texas.
“You have to go thin before you can go foldable,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Thin is in, but thin is also a precursor to the future. And the future is going to be somewhere down the line, maybe next year, maybe the year after that, but somewhere down the line, we’re going to see a foldable iPhone.”
Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst of the Enderle Group, an advisory services firm in Bend, Ore., added that the use of titanium in the Air’s body could make it more breakable. “You use titanium because of its strength, but titanium is very brittle,” he told TechNewsWorld. “While it’s strong, it won’t bend; it’ll break.”
“So while Apple is arguing it’s their most robust phone yet, because it’s so thin, the likelihood of breaking is still pretty high,” he said. “And I just don’t think that’s what people want.”
Design Refresh Spurs Upgrade Buzz
Dipanjan Chatterjee, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, a market research company headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., declared there were plenty of crackles at the Apple event and one big pop.
“The entire device portfolio gets just a little bit better and smarter with each cycle, as it should,” he told TechNewsWorld. “But the big pop comes from a redesigned Air iPhone aesthetic that will likely spur interest in a group that’s been reluctant to upgrade their old models for the lack of a differentiated option.”
“Beyond some cool new features and Apple’s traditional focus on a faster and more powerful performance, the highlight was the new iPhone Air — a newly designed iPhone, its thinnest ever,” added Chatterjee’s colleague, Vice President and Principal Analyst Thomas Husson.
“However, to truly differentiate and outperform its competition, Apple will have to crack AI as a new contextual user interface,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Executing such an ambitious AI strategy will take time. At best, it won’t happen until next year or around the iPhone’s 20th anniversary in 2027.”
“In the meantime,” he continued, “Apple’s attention to design and detail makes the difference when it comes to improving consumers’ total experience.”
Ranjit Atwal, senior director analyst at Gartner, a global research and advisory company, found the Apple event less than “awe-dropping.” He told TechNewsWorld: “It wasn’t exactly awe-inspiring.”
He observed that Apple events have taken on a different cast from the past. “Historically, they’d pitch the new iPhone at one of these events, and it would be so different compared to what’s out there now, people couldn’t wait to buy it.”
“The Air is incrementally different, better, nicer, and iPhone buyers will go and purchase it over time rather than queue up to buy it,” he said.
New Pro and Max Models
William Kerwin, a senior equity analyst with Morningstar Research Services in Chicago, noted that the overarching takeaway from the event is that the updates were positive but pretty evolutionary rather than revolutionary, even when considering the new form factor of the iPhone Air. “We think it is attractive and compelling, but we don’t see it spurring a new inflection in iPhone unit sales growth in the short term,” he told TechNewsWorld.
“What we’ve seen over the past couple of years is that Apple’s refresh cycles have been slowing and it’s weighed on iPhone revenue’s ability to grow,” he said. “We just think the Air won’t be enough to drive a significant inflection in that trend.”
In addition to the Air (US$999), Apple introduced new models of its iPhone ($799), as well as Pro ($1,099) and Pro Max ($1,199) models powered by Apple silicon, with larger displays protected by Ceramic Shield 2, all-day battery life, and 256 GB of storage.
“For the first time in a very long time, there’s actually physical variety in iPhones,” said Bob O’Donnell, founder and chief analyst of Technalysis Research, a technology market research and consulting firm in Foster City, Calif.
“The iPhone 17 is the same as all the other iPhones you’ve seen forever, but then you have the Air, which is significantly thinner, and even the Pro and the Max are physically bigger,” he told TechNewsWorld.
“So the net net is you have this very clear dichotomy of sizes, which I think is going to make it easier for people to decide which ones they want and helps make them much more distinctive,” he said. “So I think that’s a good thing because I think a lot of iPhone people have been sick of the same old designs.”
AirPods and Watch Upgrades
Apple also upgraded its AirPods line with the AirPods Pro 3 ($249), adding improved sound reproduction, better noise cancellation, live language translation, and heart rate monitoring.
“I think the heart rate sensing in the earbuds is a natural next step, especially since they already have a lot of health features in their watch,” Moor Insights’ Sag noted. “This could expand the market for Apple because there are going to be people who don’t want to wear an Apple watch but do use AirPods.”
The company also introduced its Apple Watch Series 11 line, with pricing ranging from $249 to $799. Features include better durability, 5G support, 24-hour battery life, and new health features, like hypertension notification and sleep score.
Apple Watch Series 11 features up to 24 hours of battery life, a tougher display with twice the scratch resistance, and cellular connectivity for calls, messages, and emergency help when an iPhone isn’t nearby. (Image Credit: Apple)
“The move to 5G is significant,” Reticle’s Rubin said. “It’ll do a lot to improve the speed and range of the watch.”
Apple putting a heart monitor into its AirPods Pro 3 and blood pressure detection into its watch are aggressive moves into the health tech sector, Parks’ Goodman argued.
“It potentially sets them up to create a health tracking ecosystem,” he continued. “Apple loves a good ecosystem, so I think there’s potential down the road to integrate some of these new attributes in these devices into an integrated health tracking system.”