#BENDGATE, incoming? 🤔
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPhone 17 Air Almost as Thin as Its Buttons, New Images Show
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
#BENDGATE, incoming? 🤔
The off-center USBC port on the Air doesn't look that bad and shouldn't be a deal breaker considering the insane dimensions. I am quite excited for this new ultra thin model I must admit.
It would appear to be a 16e smashburger, plus Magsafe.
Well... the 17 regular if I'm not mistaken is about 7mm, so yeah, it IS almost half its thickness!
How can you tell what the build quality will be like without the actual devices?
Very excited for this phone. I still use a 12 Mini not because of it’s screen size but because it’s the only iPhone that doesn’t feel like a brick in my pocket due to the weight. It’s not as light as my beloved iPhone 5 was (which I upgraded from) but it’s the best and only alternative since. Hopefully the “thin” iPhone is also light.
What do you mean?
We already have both alluminium and titanium iPhones.
Watch them do this and next year the smaller regular iPhone will also be Air, but with an updated price tag. Then they’ve done it: Differentiated regular iPhone from the Pro line (thinner, fewer cameras) and the regular from the e version (fatter, crappier camera).
With this in mind, the Air line can get 120 Hz screen as well and when it cannibalizes sales from the Pro line, it’s OK since they’ve raised the price on it.
This means this this Air could be called the Air Max immediately, since it would be named that next year anyway when the regular becomes just Air.
Air Max - how Nikey does that sound? Probably Tim Apples idea.
With this in mind, the Air line can get 120 Hz screen as well and when it cannibalizes sales from the Pro line, it’s OK since they’ve raised the price on it.
This means this this Air could be called the Air Max immediately, since it would be named that next year anyway when the regular becomes just Air.
Air Max - how Nikey does that sound? Probably Tim Apples idea.
Uh, they are dummy’s…
It’s still just a mid quality dummy, so don’t expect Apple to actually off center the port.
Who is this phone for? Why do you need it to be thin over anything else?
The metal doesn’t have to do with build quality. You could have a poor quality titanium phone and a high quality aluminum one.
I’m afraid it will be slightly off-centered — they need to fit a display in there, after all.
I'd love a iphone without camera, or at least a phone without anything bulging out, like the camera lens. I'd rather have nothing than that. Provide a cheaper phone without such fancy stuff: just a thin smooth phone that does everything it does well, and skip the stuff it cannot (Tim, in your ever lasting desire to milk cows: no useless bling-bling and specs just for monetary reasons, but from minimalistic design perspective: back to clean design, useful purposes and "it just works, and it works damn well" pinciples).
Last edited:
I think it’s easy to forget how thin and light the iPhone 6 was. When you have one you in your hand, the real counter intuitiveness is that we’ve gone backwards in thickness and weight.
It’s not even the first time, the iPhone XR also had an off-center lightning port
Fun facts: The 16e is smaller and lighter than the 6S Plus and has the same style camera where there is no bump but the camera itself protrudes a little. The 13 Mini is smaller and lighter than the iPhone 6S but has the camera bump.
If you dont own a 13 Mini or plan on buying an 16E then you dont actually prioritize the size and weight of your phone despite waxing nostalgic about how small and light iPhones used to be.
Some people like thin and light phones, so hopefully this ends up being a goood device for them, and as long as there are alternate options for folks who would gladly trade weight and thickness for longer battery life and more power, there’s nothing to complain about.
That said, I recently had a small realization: 50% of the effective size of my phone is the case.
My phone lives in a case, I’m not brave enough at this stage of life to go bare. When I briefly took it out of the case and used it for a while, it was almost shocking how thin and small it felt, and how tiny the bezel around the screen looked, even though the case I use is quite minimal. In effect, if I wanted a remarkably thinner, lighter phone, all I’d need to do is stop using a case. Conversely, if my phone was half the thickness, the proportionate change in what I’m holding in my hand would be substantially less noticeable than that, because the case wouldn’t get any thinner.
Ironically, if Apple developed a phone the same size and weight as the current Pro but that was somehow tough enough that I wouldn’t be afraid to use it without a case, that would effectively give me a phone thinner (and probably lighter) than the Air.
That said, I recently had a small realization: 50% of the effective size of my phone is the case.
My phone lives in a case, I’m not brave enough at this stage of life to go bare. When I briefly took it out of the case and used it for a while, it was almost shocking how thin and small it felt, and how tiny the bezel around the screen looked, even though the case I use is quite minimal. In effect, if I wanted a remarkably thinner, lighter phone, all I’d need to do is stop using a case. Conversely, if my phone was half the thickness, the proportionate change in what I’m holding in my hand would be substantially less noticeable than that, because the case wouldn’t get any thinner.
Ironically, if Apple developed a phone the same size and weight as the current Pro but that was somehow tough enough that I wouldn’t be afraid to use it without a case, that would effectively give me a phone thinner (and probably lighter) than the Air.
