Hate to say I told you so, but… you know. I told you so. Yep, this is going to be one of those articles.
Two and a half months before it was announced, I predicted that the iPhone 17 Air would be a flop. And now the first post-launch research is in, and (with the usual caveats about lack of official sales numbers) it looks like I was right: one report says Apple has “drastically” cut back on production orders and another says there’s “virtually no consumer demand.” The only part I got wrong was thinking there would be a 17 in the name.
Not that I expect or deserve much credit for this particular piece of prophecy. (Or the one that, ahem, came two months earlier than that.) Anyone could see this coming. An ultraslim smartphone was always going to be a tough sell, as Samsung discovered in the summer with the Galaxy S25 Edge. It simply requires too many compromises in areas that almost all customers care about for the sake of an improvement in one that they mostly don’t.
Apple did its best to mitigate the problems, going into full damage-control mode during the keynote presentation. Instead of extolling the actual benefit of a 5.6mm phone (can be sharpened and used as a ninja star?), the company focused on telling us how it had solved a bunch of problems it just created.
Worried it will bend? Don’t! It’s made of space-grade titanium and is virtually unbendable. Worried it will have a crappy battery life? Don’t! We’ve made room for more battery capacity by shunting components into a swollen eyesore… sorry, we mean aesthetically pleasing Plateau. Worried about camera performance? Don’t! The single rear lens is actually an exciting new “2-in-1 camera system.”
By all accounts, the iPhone Air is a genuinely impressive feat of engineering, but you can’t engineer your way out of a bad strategy. And product design is a zero-sum game anyway: each of the stellar accomplishments that make up the Air’s CV represents a missed opportunity elsewhere. If the engineers didn’t have to make it so astonishingly violence-resistant, they could have made it cheaper. If there was room for a proper battery in the main body, then it wouldn’t have to stick out at the back like a pregnant halibut. And while battery life is good for such a slim phone, it’s still worse than all the other late-2025 iPhones and the Pro models from last year.
Ultimately, as my colleague Jason pointed out in his review, the problem is that the iPhone Air asks Apple fans to pay more for less. And that’s not what we’ve been led to expect over years and years of iterative upgrades, which don’t change much but only change for the better. (Even paying more for the same is anathema. Remember those gold Apple Watch Edition models from the early days, which cost thousands and thousands for no functional improvement?) If Apple fans are going to pay over the odds, they expect to at least get a bunch of extra features they’re probably not going to use.
This may or may not be a serious setback for Apple, since the reportedly low sales of the Air are offset by the reportedly high sales of the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max. My take would be that it’s not a big deal in the short term, indeed, it may even mean more revenue overall, but it spells trouble in the medium to long term if Apple can’t learn its lesson. Traditional iPhones are likely to lose their lustre as AI becomes a more important criterion for customers and other manufacturers explore their own futuristic options–such as foldables and curved smartphones. If the future isn’t the iPhone Air, Apple needs to work out what is.
Foundry
Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.
Trending: Top stories
The iPhone 17 is doomed because everyone says it isn’t.
The iPad Pro has finally fulfilled its destiny, with a little help from the M5.
Filipe Esposito just bought an M4 iPad Pro. Here’s why he’s not tempted by the M5.
Not just Liquid Glass: Here are 6 times Apple backtracked on a major design decision.
Samsung’s Vision Pro killer is half the price and half a pound lighter.
Trump Mobile is selling ‘renewed’ iPhones that are really terrible deals.
Podcast of the week
Apple has released a new laptop, the M5 MacBook Pro. In the latest episode of the Macworld Podcast, we take a look at it, talk about our impressions, and whether it’s worth buying or not. Tune in and find out more!
You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.
Reviews corner
The rumor mill
Prominent leaker details three alleged new upcoming iPhone designs.
20th anniversary MacBook Pro: Everything you need to know about Apple’s touchscreen redesign.
The 18-inch folding iPad might not happen for a while—if ever.
The iPhone 19 might suffer the same fate as the iPhone 9.
Video of the week
You should really know about a couple of settings coming up in iOS 26.1. Enjoy all our short-form video on TikTok or Instagram.
Software updates, bugs, and problems
iOS 26 has a new iPhone security setting that you need to turn on immediately.
If your Cosmic Orange iPhone 17 Pro is turning pink, you might be cleaning it wrong.
Concerns grow over ‘new’ Siri’s performance, as Apple’s AI struggles continue.
iOS 26.1 beta 4 does the unthinkable: You can control how glassy you want Liquid Glass to be. It also brings two great new interface adjustments.
And with that, we’re done for this week’s Apple Breakfast. If you’d like to get regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters, including our new email from The Macalope–an irreverent, humorous take on the latest news and rumors from a half-man, half-mythical Mac beast. You can also follow us on Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, or X for discussion of breaking Apple news stories. See you next Monday, and stay Appley.
