AsianFin -- Apple Inc. shares closed nearly 1.5% lower on Tuesday even though the consumer electronics giant unveiled its flagship product for the year with an already expected breakthrough design.
Credit：Apple
Apple at its annual event dubbed “Awe Dropping” introduced iPhone 17 lineup and iPhone Air, the thinnest and lightest iPhone ever made. iPhone Air is just 5.6 millimters (mm) thick and weighs 165 grams. It brings iPhone's biggest changes since iPhone X was rolled out in 2017.
The device features an impossibly thin and light design that is more durable than all the previous models, with innovative camera experiences and remarkable all day battery life, said Apple.
With a strong grade 5 titanium frame, iPhone Air packs at a 6.5-inch display. It has a high-gloss mirror finish and a new plateau on the back that is precision-milled on both sides to house the cameras, speaker, and Apple silicon. This maximizes space for the battery to deliver remarkable all-day battery life. The thin design also features the Action button, so users can easily access a variety of functions with just a press, and Camera Control, to quickly launch the camera or enable visual intelligence.
Apple uses its Ceramic Shield protection around iPhone Air. On the front, the device introduces the Ceramic Shield 2 cover, which is tougher than previous iPhone glass or glass-ceramic with a new Apple-designed coating, providing 3 times better scratch resistance and improved anti-reflection to reduce glare. On the iPhone Air，Ceramic Shield for the first time protects the back of iPhone, including the plateau, delivering 4x better resistance to cracks than the back glass on previous models.
Just as the iPhone 17 series, iPhone Air also introduces an all-new Center Stage front camera that advances the photo and video experience. The Center Stage front camera features the first square front camera sensor on iPhone, offering a wide field of view and capturing photos up to 18 megapixel (MP). Center Stage allows users to capture landscape and portrait photos without rotating their camera. The Center Stage front camera enables ultra-stabilized video in 4K HDR, and users can record on the front and rear cameras simultaneously with Dual Capture.
Apple said the new 48MP Fusion camera system offers iPhone Air users the equivalent of four lenses in their pocket.Center Stage front camera. The custom main lens enables the popular 28mm and 35mm focal lengths, so users have more options to frame their shot, and the large 2.0µm quad-pixel sensor with sensor-shift OlS excels in low light. Users can also get closer to their subject with the optical-quality 2 times Telephoto, which features an updated Photonic Engine that captures more lifelike details and color.
Inside, the iPhone Air boasts the design that is only possible with Apple silicon. It is powered by A19 Pro, just like the premium iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, as well as N1 and C1X chips, making it the most power-efficient iPhone ever.
A19 Pro, the most powerful chip for iPhone yet, features a new 6-core CPU that improves performance and efficiency for the tasks users do every day, delivering the fastest CPU in any smartphone. The 5-core GPU has an upgraded architecture, delivering next-level mobile gaming, including AAA titles. Neural Accelerators are built into each GPU core, bringing up to 3-time the peak GPU compute over the previous generation, excellent for powering generative AI models running on device.
N1, a new Apple-designed wireless networking chip that enables Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread. C1X, a new cellular modem designed by Apple,is up to 2 times faster than C1, and for the same cellular technologies, it is even faster than the modem in iPhone 16 Pro, while using 30 percent less energy overall.
IPhone Air delivers “remarkable all-day battery life”, thanks to advanced Apple silicon, an internal architecture that maximizes space for the battery, and software optimizations. The new Adaptive Power Mode in iOS 26 also gets to know a user’s typical battery consumption and anticipates when they might run low, intelligently conserving power to help get them through the day.
IPhone Air features an eSIM-only design that saves space internally, helping enable the unbelievably light and thin form factor. It starts at $999, the same as former starting price of the Pro line. The device will be available in space black, cloud white, light gold, and sky blue. Customers in more than 36 countries and regions including the U.S., China, Japan, India will be allowed to pre-order beginning at this Friday, September 12, with all availability beginning a week later, or September 19.
Apple delivered a rare price hike for its new iPhone lineup. iPhone 17 Pro will start at $1,099, a $100 price bump from last year’s model. That marks the first price raise in the Pro model since 2017. "The big pop comes from a redesigned 'Air' iPhone aesthetic that will likely spur interest in a group that’s been reluctant to upgrade their old models for the lack of a differentiated option," Forrester’s VP Principal Analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee wrote on Tuesday.
