Next year, Apple plans to release an ultra-thin version of the iPhone, which is listed in the leaks as the iPhone 17 Air. According to insider Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, it will be the thinnest iPhone in history.
Until now, the thinnest iPhone was considered the iPhone 6 – 6.9 mm. The journalist writes that the thickness of the case in the iPhone 17 Air will be about 2 mm less than that of the iPhone 16 Pro. The thickness of the latter is 8.25 mm, that is, we are talking about approximately (or exactly) 6.25 mm for the iPhone 17 Air.
If you believe the source, it was possible to achieve a record-thin case, in particular, thanks to Apple's own 5G modem. It is smaller than Qualcomm modules and more energy-efficient. The same modem will be used in the iPhone SE 4 and the new inexpensive iPad.
Previous rumors suggested that the iPhone 17 Air will be so thin that it will not receive a SIM card tray. Apple engineers will also have to abandon the second speaker in order not to reduce the battery capacity.
6.25 mm – this is far from a record in the history of smartphones, but there have been no such thin devices on the market for a long time. For example, the Infinix Hot 50 Pro+ released in October with a thickness of 6.8 mm is the thinnest in many years, and the absolute record holder is the Vivo X5 Max from 2014. Its thickness is 4.75 mm.
After the release of the iPhone 17 Air, we can expect that ultra-thin phones will return to fashion after a ten-year hiatus. It is unlikely that Chinese manufacturers will sit idly by. Most likely, work in this direction is already in full swing.
At the very least, Samsung is definitely preparing its ultra-thin smartphone to compete with the iPhone 17 Air. In terms of specifications, the Galaxy S25 Slim will be inferior only to the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and it will be released closer to the fall of 2025.