The iPhone Air is official, and is the first Air-branded iPhone we've ever seen. Designed to be slimmer and lighter than any other iPhone 17, it's certainly as "awe dropping" as the Apple event's name suggested. The iPhone 17 is still here for users wanting the standard all-round iPhone experience, and there are the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max to check out too if photography and performance is your thing.
But the iPhone Air seems to want to appeal to a different audience, one who wants a phone that disappears easily into a pocket but can also dazzle onlookers with its stunning engineering. Let's go through the phone's features and specs, and we can see if you and the iPhone Air might make a good pair.
iPhone Air cheat sheet
- Thinnest iPhone ever at 5.6mm thick
- Starts at $999 / AU$1,799 with 256GB storage, with pre-orders beginning on Friday, September 12, and open sales on Friday, September 19.
- 6.5-inch 120Hz display with 3000 nits peak brightness
- Ceramic Shield 2 glass front and back with improved durability and anti-reflective coating
- Polished titanium frame for blend of strength and lightness
- Four colors are offered - Space Black, Light Gold, Sky Blue, Cloud White
- High-density battery still promises "all-day" battery life - but a new slim MagSafe battery pack will help keep the phone topped up when needed
- New "plateau" camera block design
- iOS 26 comes pre-installed, including new and upgraded features like Visual Intelligence and Live Translation
- A19 Pro chip with "MacBook Pro-level" power
- New N1 wireless chip to enable Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread connectivity, plus C1X modem for greater efficiency
- Single 48MP "Fusion" camera offers high-res regular shots and 2x optical quality zoom
- 18MP Center Stage selfie camera helps to frame everyone in shot, whether you hold it horizontally or vertically
- Dual capture video lets you shoot video from both the front and rear camera for unique videography options
- eSIM support only worldwide - say goodbye to your physical SIM card if you want to get an iPhone Air for yourself
- Apple offers a standard slim case in Frost and Shadow, or a bumper case that matches the phone's four basic colors. You can pair it with a matching crossbody strap too.
iPhone 17 Air: Price and availability
The iPhone Air (no 17, unlike the other new models), starts at $999 / AU$1,799, a little more expensive than the iPhone 16 Plus it replaces but not nearly as much as some of the rumored price points we heard prior to launch. The base price gets you 256GB of storage, but you can spec 512GB or 1TB should you wish to have more room. Pre-orders are up from Friday, September 12, with the iPhone Air hitting store shelves properly on September 19 the following Friday.
iPhone 17 Air: Design and display
The iPhone Air measures just 5.6mm (0.22 inches), beating the already thin Galaxy S25 Edge (which measures 5.8mm/0.23 inches). Apple was careful to emphasize that the Air is still tough, with a beautiful-looking polished titanium frame and new Ceramic Shield 2 glass on front, with the original Ceramic Shield material taking care of the back.
Despite the thinness, we’re pleased to see all the buttons seen on previous iPhones make it onto the iPhone Air unscathed. That includes the rebindable Action button and the iPhone 16 series’ Camera Control key.
The four colors on offer for the iPhone Air are Space Black, Light Gold, Sky Blue and Cloud White. All suitably air-y sounding names for a phone focused on lightness. If the phone alone doesn’t feel enough, Apple showed off two kinds of case: a standard slim case that comes in Frost and Shadow colorways, and four bumper cases. These come in the same quartet of hues as the iPhone Air itself, and wrap around the edge of the phone to provide protection without additional thickness.
The display, a 6.5-inch OLED unit, has a 120Hz “ProMotion” refresh rate like the other iPhones Apple just announced, for smooth scrolling and greater power efficiency. The peak brightness is an impressive 3,000 nits, but we’ll need to test that for ourselves.
iPhone 17 Air: Cameras
On the back, a new camera “plateau” houses just a single lens. This 48MP shooter is capable of 2x optical quality zoom, so you still get a bit of extra reach, but there’s no ultrawide camera to be found, nor the new 4x telephoto added to the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max.
Meanwhile, the front camera is Apple’s new 18MP Center Stage selfie snapper. This uses a new square sensor to help frame your shots, or keep you in frame during FaceTime calls. This can be used along with the rear camera to shoot simultaneous video in Dual Capture mode.
iPhone 17 Air: Performance
Driving the phone is the A19 chipset, used by the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max too. There’s also a new N1 chip for wireless connectivity, which is compatible with the latest Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread smarthome standards, and a C1X modem for faster performance and greater efficiency when connecting to mobile networks.
Apple promises that despite the iPhone Air having a slight frame, it’s still got an all-day battery life thanks to a denser cell design. But if you need longer, Apple’s new, similarly slimmed-down MagSafe battery pack can provide up to 40 hours of total video playback time when attached to the reverse of the iPhone Air.
To get as much room as possible for other features, Apple has made the iPhone Air eSIM compatible-only worldwide. Unlike the other three new iPhones, which have eSIM models in the U.S. but SIM-compatible ones in the rest of the world, you don’t have a choice in getting your iPhone Air connected to the cellular network.
iPhone 17 Air: Outlook
We've been hearing rumors of an iPhone Air model for almost a year, and now that it's here it's looking like it lives up to the Air name that Apple has used for multiple of its other product categories. The design is the focal point of this phone, with the shiny titanium and bright colors begging people to take notice of this all-new iPhone design.
Whether people will find losing cameras and battery life compared to the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max worth the price of admission is the big question. And it's one we'll try to answer in our upcoming hands-on and reviews.
For now, check back with our Apple event live blog for the details on the other announcements from today. There was a lot of ground to cover, including the AirPods Pro 3, Apple Watch 11, Apple Watch SE 3 and Apple Watch Ultra 3.
Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!
More from Tom's Guide
- AirTag 2 is nearly ready to launch — but not at WWDC
- Apple's new HomePod with iPad-like display reportedly launching this year
- I'm not upgrading to the iPhone 17 this year — here's what's holding me back
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
