iPhone Air Sales Are So Bad That Apple's Delaying the Next-Generation Version

[krspkbl]

Scrap it like the mini.

The only slightly interesting thing about the Air is how thin it is as long as you don’t look at the camera bump. Too many compromises for the sake of being thin.

Nobody wants small or thin phones anymore.

Just give us two standard models and two pro models. 18, 18 plus, 18 pro, 18 pro max. Simple.

 

[krspkbl]

Tim Apple should have green lit an iPhone mini 17!

Why would he do that? Nobody was buying the mini either.

 

[krspkbl]

The camera bump… the poor battery life, sub par camera… and the price… this is why it's not flying off the shelves

And the lack of stereo speakers.

 

[MrGimper]

Everyone knows the whole purpose of the Air was to prototype one half of a foldable.

 

[krspkbl]

Everyone knows the whole purpose of the Air was to prototype one half of a foldable.

They should scrap the fold right now then.

 

[redheeler]

Who didn't see that coming. Apple is one of the only companies in the world that can get away with repeating the same mistakes over and over again and still survive. It's hilarious.

Thinness over function – already done with the iPhone 6. Charging a premium for an "Air" device – already done with the OG MacBook Air. Both mistakes were fixed until Apple randomly decides to do it again.

 

[jdoyle]

Reminicnt of the MacBook 12in. Had ultra thin and light design, retina screen but severely undercooked specs and sold for a premium price.

It's a shame really. My wife wants one because the killer feature is the weight. She is fine with a single lens camera and the single speaker. Only issue might be battery power. She's a heavy user. But I am thinking just get the battery pack as well.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Not used to being an Apple outlier . . . .

The water is warm, come on in!

 

[iZac]

Playing Devils Adovate but perhaps pushing the iPhone Air update lets them solidly focus attention on the folding phone next September? Also keeping the iPhone Air at full price with year-old specs would make the fold look better by comparison! They could just give the Air a 10 minute update highlighting iOS 27 improvements plus a couple of new colours.

 

[Living the Dream]

Live and learn and at least the tech used to make it thin can be used in some future device.

They didn’t really invent any new thin tech. They just moved the current to the plateau.

 

[lovehateapple]

I hope this permanently puts apple's obsession with thinness to bed. iPhones are already thin enough.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I think they need to be really careful how they price the fold device (assuming the rumors are true). Obviously it's going to be more expensive, but if it's TOO high, it risks the same thing happening to that device as well.

Overpriced Vision Pro
Overpriced Air

Fold is probably going to be overpriced also.

 

[anthony131]

And yet sales show it is in fact hugely important to consumers.

Show me the stats that say people bought a new phone because it has the same cameras and speakers as their current phone?

Neither you or I know why most people buy a new phone. I think it's because most people buy what they think they're supposed to buy based either on direct marketing from the manufacturer or indirectly by "influencers" and word of mouth. People think they need more of this and that because marketing tells them they do.

I guarantee you that the vast majority of iPhone users around the world do not need a three day battery, stereo speakers that only reveal themselves when you turn it sideways, or a literal mound of cameras that can take a photo from 1cm to 1km.

It's not that these features are important to consumers, it's the perceived utility of these features - ie marketing.

 

[partyboy4357]

Spoken like a true non-user of the actual phone. If you think everyone needs stereo sound, pro-level cameras, and days of battery life on a phone, you do not live in the real world of most people.

Not everyone just the 99.99999% of folks that aren’t obsessed with stupid thinness at all cost. SMDH

 

[mwhite]

Another Apple flop, after the Vision Pro...

Too many swings and misses from a once great company

That’s what happens when your focus becomes pure, unmitigated greed.

 

[jmgregory1]

I love my iPhone Air. I’m amazed every time I pick it up. And I’ve never not made it through a day, even when traveling. Great screen and connectivity. I’m re-looking at it right now, while typing this note and it’s just so good.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

The vanilla 17 does not feel much heavier in-hand versus the Air. 12 grams is 5 pennies.

IMO it feels totally different. Obviously YMMV. I am not a candidate for the iPhone Air and bought an iPPM, but the Air is IMO a very different device in hand than the iPhone 17 is.

 

[mwhite]

I hope this permanently puts apple's obsession with thinness to bed. iPhones are already thin enough.

I thought that obsession died when Ive left. Guess not.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

The same thing will happen to fold. Air flop was foreseeable but it was Apple so people had hopes. Same with fold. Folds are a flop. What is it 2% market share overall. If you think rationally and consider the high price, that its a gimmick, and has worse Pro features it will definitely flop.

2% market share at the very highest end of hundreds of millions phones sold annually is no flop.

 

[blairh]

Show me the stats that say people bought a new phone because it has the same cameras and speakers as their current phone?

Neither you or I know why most people buy a new phone. I think it's because most people buy what they think they're supposed to buy based either on direct marketing from the manufacturer or indirectly by "influencers" and word of mouth. People think they need more of this and that because marketing tells them they do.

I guarantee you that the vast majority of iPhone users around the world do not need a three day battery, stereo speakers that only reveal themselves when you turn it sideways, or a literal mound of cameras that can take a photo from 1cm to 1km.

It's not that these features are important to consumers, it's the perceived utility of these features - ie marketing.

This is ridiculous.

 

[sguser]

That is too bad. I own one and amazed every-time I pick it up how much better it compares to my old 16 Pro or the 17 Pro I tried. When I had both the Air and the 17 Pro, I reached for the Air every-time, as it felt so much better and the screen seemed so much better being larger. Definitely more upsides to it than downsides for me.

Battery life is just as good as my 16 Pro was and I never use speaker, as have Airpods, so could care less about that.

I feel the same way about my Air after upgrading from 16 Pro. I understand all the compromises, and yet still I have zero regrets about buying the phone.

 

[ProbablyDylan]

it's crazy that the battery life complaints are from people that weren't buying it anyways.

Anyways, it warms my heart to see the Mini gang out in force!

 

[Flight Plan]

Apple is going to try an iPhone Air model again. Why not? Companies don't get to be successful by just giving up. Especially not Apple, even in spite of the advice being given by the majority of the last 14.5 pages of reader comments. It wouldn't be surprising for a new person here to think that this bunch of people are against anything and everything Apple might try to do to improve their products, services, or methodologies for delivery.

I say go for it, Apple.

• It took 39 failed versions before WD-40 was found to be the one.
• Edison did not fail to make a working light bulb 10,000 times; that would be unreasonable and preposterous. But his own records apparently indicate that he may have gone through almost 3,000 attempts.
• It took over a decade of trial and error to finally get Penicillin. Which has saved the lives of half a billion humans since 1928.

Sometimes the internet just gives up too easily. It's really not the "internet", per se. It's a toxic herd reaction among humans, and we are forever hurting ourselves by this predilection. We're either too convincable or we reject everything.

I love you all but I'm very very thankful that the comments on Mac Rumors don't automatically decide which products will be made or canceled.

Sure, that means Apple will make mistakes from time to time. I'm okay with that.

There's a very good book I'd like to recommend for anybody who would like to read up on the nature of human groupthink, and how it can really hurt people.

"Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds", by Charles MacKay. This is a series of stories about various trends and bubbles, and goes into detail about how everyday people got swept up into mass-think at different times in human history. If memory serves, MacKay wrote the first edition in the 1840s. Yes, the 1840s. This psychology of crowds goes back as far as humans, and if it weren't for this book, we would just forget this stuff because of our goldfish attention span.

Anyhow, it's a good read. You can get it on Amazon. I recommend the "All Versions" edition. Buy it for yourself, or the thinker you love.

 

[bunce66]

They're not going to cancel it as a product. They're going to iterate on it until they can make a super thin one that's on par with the regular iPhone. And then that's what the regular iPhone will become... a super thin regular iPhone.

 

[grammatica]

What? Who knew?