Over the past few weeks, several leaks have revealed the look of the iPhone 17 lineup. However, getting a new glimpse of the upcoming iPhone 17 Air is always intriguing. After all, this will be Apple’s thinnest iPhone to date, and its most exciting new iPhone model in a long, long time.
This time, leaker Sonny Dickson shared a few images highlighting the sides of all the upcoming iPhone 17 models. While the new iPhone 17 Pro Max is expected to be thicker with a larger battery, the iPhone 17 Air will be “unbelievably thin.”
The images emphasize how close the USB-C port comes to the device’s edges. With the iPhone 17 Air expected to be just 5.5-6mm thin, it seems the phone will barely be thicker than its buttons and charging port.
While this daring design change will come with some compromises, the iPhone 17 Air is expected to drive more sales than the current iPhone Plus models. However, some of these compromises might include lower battery life, a single camera (while other models will feature two or three lenses), a weaker 5G chip — most likely the same C1 chip found in the iPhone 16e — and the absence of a physical SIM card slot.
Despite these limitations, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman previously stated that Apple will do everything it can to maximize the battery life on this device.
But the inner workings of the phone, code-named D23, represents a herculean effort by several Apple teams. Skinnier phones require thinner batteries, and that often mean fewer hours of battery life. Apple didn’t want to compromise here, so it sent engineers back to the drawing board to redesign display and silicon components, as well as software, to make the device more efficient.
Despite these compromises, the iPhone 17 Air is expected to feature an OLED display with ProMotion technology, the latest A19 chip, at least 8GB of RAM, and Apple Intelligence features.
