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Worried about bending the iPhone Air? Apple says the super-slim device is tougher than it looks.
Apple SVPs Greg Joswiak and John Ternus sat down with Tom’s Guide and TechRadar to talk about the new iPhone 17 lineup, including the Air’s durability. “The titanium here, on such a thin product, was key,” Joswiak says before tossing the editors an iPhone Air and challenging them to bend it with their bare hands. At most, the phone slightly bends before straightening back.
The device measures 0.22 inches thick, slightly less than the 0.23 inches on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge. But despite its slim profile, the Air “is more durable” than any previous iPhone model, according to Apple.
“That is 100% true,” Ternus says, citing the iPhone Air’s ceramic and titanium casing. “It exceeds our internal metrics for bend strength.”
Left to right: Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, Apple iPhone Air (Credit: PCMag/Eric Zeman )
“It’s kind of like a seismic building, it should give a little, before it comes back,” Joswiak says, adding that the design approach includes reinforcing the battery.
During our own hands-on with the iPhone Air, an Apple representative also demonstrated the device’s durability in a test that applied about 175 pounds of pressure to the center of the phone.
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“The phone definitely bent, but it did not break, and returned to its original shape after the torture test,” PCMag’s Eric Zeman wrote.
The durability should help Apple steer clear of another “bendgate” controversy, which occured with 2014’s iPhone 6 Plus, another relatively thin device that was built with an aluminum casing. Some users discovered their phones were bending after placing too much pressure on them, prompting some critics to wonder if Apple had built the device too thin.
Still, with the iPhone Air, it’s clear that there are some trade-offs. For example, the Air only features a single-lens camera in the rear, compared with the three-camera system on the Pro models. The new iPhones launch on Friday, Sept. 19. Stay tuned for our reviews.
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