Apple’s iPhone Air Might Debut Before the Year Ends

Apple may have decided to name its upcoming slim iPhone this fall the iPhone 17 Air, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports in today’s Power On newsletter. He writes that the phone will be a “a testing ground for future technologies,” including those that could lead to the company’s first foldable device.

The name isn’t surprising. Both the MacBook Air and iPad Air were the thinnest versions in their lineups when they were released. The iPhone 17 Air is expected to continue this trend by being “about 2 millimeters thinner” than current iPhones, Gurman writes. Recent rumors have suggested the thickness will be between 5.5mm and 6.25mm, which would be roughly the same thickness as the M4 iPad Pro and thinner than the iPhone 6, the thinnest iPhone to date.

The thinness is not just a sign that Apple will help develop a foldable iPad or iPhone in the future, Gurman wrote. He also said the phone could be the first testing ground for Apple’s in-house cellular modem (codenamed Sinope), which will debut in the iPhone SE this spring. Apple-designed Wi-Fi/Bluetooth chips are also expected to feature in this year’s iPhone lineup, but Gurman did not say for certain that this would include the 17 Air.

Previous rumors have suggested that the new 17 Air will feature a 6.6-inch ProMotion OLED display (Apple’s 120Hz variable refresh rate screen previously only used in iPhone Pro models), a single 48-megapixel camera lens, and a 24-megapixel selfie camera on the back. It could be powered by Apple’s A19 chip, and like the iPhone SE 4, it is expected to have 8GB of RAM to run Apple Intelligence’s AI features.