iPhone 17 Pro Thermals Are Everything: iPhone 17 Pro vs iPhone Air

[C. Robert]

Im not launching SPACE x rockets on my air, im playing clash of clans.

 

[MayaUser]

Since iphone air and iphone 17 doesnt have vapor chamber like every iphone before that were sold in billions units and no slow components were found in billions of units, this topic can be closed please

 

[Andeddu]

Most iPhone Air users will never encounter thermal throttling, because they’re not using the device in “Pro-level” ways. Scrolling through social media, taking photos, doing light edits, or playing casual games like Candy Crush barely stress the CPU. Realistically, how many iPhone Air owners are pushing it with console-grade AAA games or heavy video editing?

 

[Contact_Feanor]

Wow. Y'all need some science/engineering studies. Badly. The function of a vapor chamber is to transfer heat on an ongoing basis. A vapor chamber is not some simple heat sink that absorbs a finite amount of heat and is then full. Not even remotely.

I know how a vapor chamber works. It's not a heat sink but a heat pipe. The fact remains that in small vapor chambers like these with sustained heat input and more heat input than output, the vapor chamber can get to a phase where it more resembles a heat sink. Which is also shown in most testing data: sustained cpu activity => the heat sink first helps immensely, then suddenly stops and performance drops to similar rates as no vapor chamber.
The ideal situation where the liquid vaporizes on one side and condenses again on the other side only works as long as the other side is cool enough. Physics...

 

[johnsawyercjs]

People aren’t talking enough about the vapor chamber. Give it two months and the iPhone Air’s components will start slowing down. The iPhone 17 Pro’s vapor chamber is the real game-changer—it keeps the phone running fast, all the time and indefinitely.

All the iPhone Air buyers will be regretting their decision.

As an electronics technician with some experience with electronic engineering, I can confidently say that the electronic components in the Air won't degrade and "slow down" over any time period due to not having a vapor chamber to help reduce their heat. What might slow down over time, if the Air's internals stay significantly hotter than the Pros, is the battery's charging rate, since rechargeable batteries develop a higher internal resistance as they age, and greater exposure to heat can age them faster. But we don't know yet if the Airs will suffer from this, and we won't know for maybe half a year or longer.

 

[jay-A]

All the iPhone Air buyers will be regretting their decision.

So much that Apple should never have created it to begin with.

Seriously, Macrumors newbie, there are forum guidelines that you should read before making your first posts. And among these, avoid flamebaits like this.

 

[Parowdy]

This is actually good for battery health!

Why would it be good?

 

[rui no onna]

So much that Apple should never have created it to begin with.

Seriously, Macrumors newbie, there are forum guidelines that you should read before making your first posts. And among these, avoid flamebaits like this.

Lol, OP created his account back in 2013. I doubt he did it specifically for the iPhone Air. Mind, the OG iPad Air was released in 2013.

 

[Thor_9]

given the tremendous amount of power that ios26 sucks , you unfortunately do need a big battery and a vapor chamber

Why does it use so much more power?

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

Why does it use so much more power?

we don't know. hopefully it can be optimized , but I imagine glassmorphism is taxing from the start. idk if they put some ray tracing in it.

the UI is now HDR which is definitely a culprit, as LPM lowers the power consumption by a lot (reduce transparency fails to) . I do not know whether specular highlights are in HDR as well or if it's only in case of interaction/dynamic UI.

 

[boswald]

My 14 PM barely gets warm indexing, let alone using it. And that's with the stainless steel body. I don't know why anyone with an even more recent iPhone than mine should worry about this.