Sure, because Apple is SELLING MORE PHONES right now. None of us know the breakdown, but I would wager that as a percentage of phones, the Air is selling similarly at best.
And as I've said repeatedly, I WANTED a phone like the Mini but I didn't buy it BECAUSE OF THE TRADEOFFS.
I KNOW people put cases on both. I've addressed that SEVERAL TIMES, but you continue to miss the point.
IF weight is the MOST IMPORTANT THING, then IF you put a case on the Air, you're now at EXACTLY THE SAME WEIGHT as a stock iPhone 17 which has fewer tradeoffs. In that scenario, weight MUST NOT be the most important thing. It becomes a moot point.
And that once again brings us to the ACTUAL FACT that the iPhone Air is not particularly popular, and that is probably because of the tradeoffs. Samsung only sold 1 million of the Edge to a much, much bigger market because it's not a popular form factor.
You keep trying to defend the Air in a way that's totally baffling to me, because I'm not saying that thinness or low weight are bad, particularly since it is, as you correctly point out, very robust. If you notice that difference, that's fine. But as a phone in the market, it is doing poorly, and I've laid out my explanation for why I think that is. If the Air had 2 cameras like the 17, I think it would be selling much better, but as it stands, people are flocking to the 17 because it has the fewest tradeoffs in terms of functionality and cost.
For a company like Apple that is deeply intolerant of even middling success, this is doom for the Air. Honestly, I hope that the Air survives, because I'm sympathetic to the niche phone builds. But I'd rather that they be a huge success, and that means figuring out why they're unpopular and fixing those problems. To beat a dead horse, it's clear that a low weight and thinner form factor alone are not enough to drive big sales while the phone has fewer features and is more expensive.
