why I hate the iPhone air
This post was originally going to be about the new iPhone 17e, iPad Air M4, and the MacBook Pro M5 that came out yesterday and today.
Unfortunately there is barely anything to write about regarding them, there are relatively minor improvements in chip performance/benchmarks and not worth diving into.
While researching them, I came across the iPhone Air (released Sep 19th 2025).
The iPhone Air represents basically everything I dislike about Apple:
Features:
The iPhone Air genuinely lacks features that Apple’s base iPhone 17 had.
It has a single back camera which means no ultrawide/0.5x shots) and also less camera zoom options. It also has significantly less battery life (~27 hours vs ~30 for the 17 according to Apple), however users reported not being able to last a full day without charging on launch with the Air so take Apple’s claims with a grain of salt.
Design:
Personally, I don’t really find the ‘thinness’ of a device to be an attractive feature/selling point. Back in the day, personal tech was less mature and laptops, phones, etc were a lot thicker. This was why the original MacBook Air was revolutionary, but now Apple’s pursuit of slimness seems myopic.
the 2015 MacBook Air that had keyboard issues because of its design
Performance:
The iPhone air has worse chip performance than the base 17. All the components of the air are maximally crammed into the camera bump:
This makes it thermal throttle (heat up and the chip slows down) a lot more than the iPhone 17, reflected in the benchmarks below. Keep in mind the numbers below are after a single run, sustained usage performance drops significantly.
Pricing:
The iPhone 17 Air starts at $1799 AUD. This is $400 more than the base 17, and $200 less than the 17 Pro.
I was genuinely baffled when the phones got announced and I saw the comparisons.
Personally I wouldn’t pay $400 more for a worse camera, battery, and performance for the sole benefit of having a thinner (by 2.3mm) phone.
I really hope the main reason for releasing this phone was to spur Apple’s manufacturers into being ready to produce smaller components for future products like smart glasses or other wearables.
That’s about it for today guys, hope you enjoyed! Lmk your thoughts in the comments, and don’t forget to like and subscribe!!
Tough