The iPhone Air was released to great fanfare. Touted as Apple thinnest iPhone (assuming you don’t count the plates which is about the same thickness as the rest of the phone), it revealed a number of engineering innovations. Is the iPhone Air a flop that’s doomed to be a ‘one and done’ model or has it opened up a whole new market for Apple?
The iPhone Air solves problems Apple created
Apple seems obsessed by making devices that are as thin as possible. But making a device that is super-thin introduces challenges. Apple has turned the problems it created by design into marketing opportunities. For example:
- Making a phone thin makes it more susceptible to bending – Apple uses its application of titanium as a way of touting the device’s strength
- A thinner device has less space for a battery – Apple moves all the main components to the Plateau at the top of the phone to make room for a larger battery
- The iPhone Air has a single camera – Apple touts that while it’s a single camera, it acts like a two-camera system
- To make the iPhone Air thinner Apple has moved all the main components to a Plateau that is twice as thick as the rest of the phone
In other words, each problem the thin design creates has been turned into a feature. The iPhone Air doesn’t solve any problems that it has not created for itself.
There is one problem the iPhone Air does solve – but it’s not a problem for customers. Apple needs to create a thinner device in order to make its folding iPhone/folding iPad products. It needs to create thinner devices that are robust enough for day-to-day use that can fold. It’s possible the iPhone Air is really an experiment in seeing whether a mass marketed device that is just 5.5mm thick can survive.
Perhaps the iPhone Air is a high-priced beta test of the folding models that are expected in 2026.
Reports of a sales flop
There have been many reports about iPhone Air production being reduced to near end-of-llfe levels. There were several sources for that information with well known supply analyst Ming-Chi Kuo among the naysayers.
Like the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini, I suspect there will be a specific niche market that really wants a thinner iPhone and who don’t need a fancy camera. But whether that niche of users is big enough to sustain the iPhone Air as an ongoing product line remains to be seen.
I suspect the iPhone Air’s biggest competitor in the iPhone range is the iPhone 16e. The iPhone Air retails for $1799 whole the iPhone 16e sells for $999. In terms of usability, they are very similar. The extra $800 gets you a thinner phone and marginally faster performance.
So, reports of slow iPhone Air sales are hardly surprising.
But is there really a sales flop?
A note by US investment advisors TD Cowen suggests that iPhone Air production has not been curtailed. Their report says no changes are being made to iPhone forecasts for October including the iPhone Air. This is based on their own analysis of Apple’s supply chain.
Apple has sold over 3 billion iPhones since it was released almost 20 years ago. In that time, there have been models that have come and gone in a relatively short time. The two ‘mini’ iPhones, the iPhone XR and others only had relatively short lives on the market.
But none of those models were presented as premium models in the same way as the iPhone Air.
We won’t know whether the iPhone Air has been a market success or failure for some time. If Apple decides to offer an iPhone Air 2 in 2026, then it will have been deemed to have succeeded in the market. But if there’s no second act then Apple will have answered the question for us.
Anthony is the founder of Australian Apple News. He is a long-time Apple user and former editor of Australian Macworld. He has contributed to many technology magazines and newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.