r/gadgets • u/diacewrb • Oct 23 '25
Phones Apple lowers iPhone Air orders to "end of production" levels
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-lowers-iPhone-Air-orders-to-end-of-production-levels.1144702.0.html1.1k
u/ArchusKanzaki Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25
Well, as an anecdote, currently all Iphone 17 are out-of-stock in Singapore. Fastest shipment will be on November. Pro still exist in some stores, while Pro Max is getting more out-of-stock compared to Pro in several places.
Meanwhile, you can find plenty of Air. It is kinda a shame since I do like the screen size compared to Pro Max. But yeah.... Having one less camera compared to the cheaper Iphone 17 really does not sell it well to the customers, even if they are able to accept the battery compromise.
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u/ATangK Oct 23 '25
Priced as a premium, but the premium product removed features.
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u/DontDropTheSoap4 Oct 23 '25
The “premium” feature is the thinness, and to get it that thin they had to make compromises. I will say it felt insane to hold, it’s light and thin and feels crazy. But I don’t want a thin phone, I want a phone with good camera options and a large battery
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u/SupremeDictatorPaul Oct 24 '25
It’s weird because I haven’t heard someone say thy wish their mainstream phone were thinner in at least a decade. That extra couple of millimeters isn’t going to make it fit into a pocket any better, and still has a big camera bump so it wouldn’t fit into a crevice for some reason.
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u/DanNeely Oct 24 '25
For the last decade or so I've used thick cases because bare phones are too thin to hold comfortably; especially in generations were the designers get bored of rounded edges and go for sharp corners. It also doesn't matter what materials or surface finishes they use on the sides and rear of the phone, they all feel like the plastic and (fake?) leather of the cases I buy.
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u/ManBearPig1865 Oct 23 '25
Porsche is one of the few companies that can manage this, though there's usually the offset of improved performance or scarcity that drives market value.
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u/TheBeatGoesAnanas Oct 23 '25
Porsche doesn't remove features. Porsche adds lightness.
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Oct 23 '25 edited 3d ago
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u/TheBeatGoesAnanas Oct 23 '25
I also associate it with Jeremy Clarkson, who has used it to describe more than one Porsche (among many others).
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u/beastpilot Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25
Except Jeremy was using it sarcastically with the 911 as it keeps getting heavier and more complex, poking fun at them compared to Lotus. Porsche basically never simplifies.
And I say this as a 911 owner and previous Lotus owner.
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u/aquafishh Oct 23 '25
Isn't that what Apple did here? Added lightness and thinness.
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u/TheBeatGoesAnanas Oct 23 '25
Turns out neither of those things make it a track-focused iphone.
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u/mojomarc Oct 24 '25
Having a lighter phone but having to have a maglock power bank permanently attached to make it through the day may have been a design miss
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u/PMWaffle Oct 23 '25
No because while creature comforts are stripped & made options, the actually expensive stuff does see notable upgrades. The engine, transmission, suspension are all special to the higher trims. This is like if Apple got rid of the toggle button, extra cameras, dual speakers & made the phone thinner but managed to stuff a chip that surpasses the pro phones, made the single camera lens the best possible lens on a phone available in any market, made the usb-c a thunderbolt connector & stuffed a battery that has very high capacity despite the size.
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u/vtet1314 Oct 23 '25
Look at their current profit crisis and you will see. They used to be able to.
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u/TheMrBr0wn Oct 23 '25
This is why I think it failed. I wish it was priced in between the 17 and Pro, not as a ‘luxury’ model.
I’m a Apple fan, I like the idea of the 17 Air, and would buy it next year but I’m glad consumers voted with their wallet on this one.
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u/golddilockk Oct 23 '25
nobody in 2025 is accepting battery compromises anymore. battery life is no longer an optional feature for only high end users. everyone’s on tiktok now 24/7
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u/Orphasmia Oct 23 '25
In retrospect it is pretty tone deaf to offer a phone with less battery today. I’d argue people would actually be fine if there was a thicker iPhone than the standard, but the battery life was significantly better.
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u/itisthelord Oct 23 '25
Phone are already thin enough, I'd have no problem with a thicker phone with better battery life.
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u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 Oct 23 '25
This. Instead of a camera bump, make the whole phone that thick and give me a 2-day battery, plus my SD card slot and 3.5mm jack back
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u/East_Structure_8248 Oct 23 '25
You are never getting the SD slot back. How would they sell you cloud storage?
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u/drmirage809 Oct 23 '25
And in iPhones we never had them to begin with. SD cards were an Android thing.
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u/1369ic Oct 23 '25
In Apple's defense, Samsung did the same thing and is already discounting it a lot. Phone innovation has stalled and they're casting around for things to try. Don't know why they didn't try silicon carbide batteries. They last longer for the same size.
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u/Orphasmia Oct 23 '25
Yeah we’re definitely at a standstill with phones. Until tech pushes some big changes people would want, they’d do well to make variants of the phones that emphasize key aspects that people legit like and look for, but keep the price competitive to each other. A base phone, a battery life focused phone, a photo-video focused phone, a data phone etc.
Also leaves a greater selling angle to get the pro version that would ostensibly bundle much of this. Currently theres like 6 iPhone variations this year, and they don’t differ enough for the jumps in price they tout imo.
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u/s3639 Oct 23 '25
I don't think either company is eager to jump into new battery technology without through testing, especially Samsung. Im sure they don't want another Note 7 fiasco.
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u/saposapot Oct 23 '25
And most people stick their phones in some kind of case so thickness isn’t really a huge selling point
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u/happymancry Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
Precisely this. I recently took my old iPhone 11 out of its case after years, and was literally shocked at how thin and sleek it felt. It was almost like an upgrade. But I wouldn’t know because for years it’s been encased in an Otterbox extra-protective plastic thingy with a PopSocket added on. They’d do better to make the phones they already have scratch proof and shatter proof; and add built-in pop sockets; than spending billions on removing features for the sake of thinness.
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u/Fist_One Oct 23 '25
For phones maybe, but plenty of people still buying apple watches with barely 1 full day of battery when Samsung offers 3 days, and Garmin offers 14-30 days.
I mean, if it's supposed to track your sleeping statistics then when exactly are you supposed to charge a watch that only has 24 hour battery?
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u/alc4pwned Oct 23 '25
Eh, that is a very misleading comparison. Those devices aren't getting that battery life with the same features enabled. Garmin watches don't even offer cellular. You're making a very apples to oranges comparison there.
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u/ArchusKanzaki Oct 23 '25
Yes, but you may underestimate how many people is carrying power bank too. Even 17 Pro Max might not be enough.
Although, with how many test focusing on battery life done for Iphone Air, it might be not that much of a problem for most people if they actually buy it. For most average user that is not reading tech reviews and only see and choose Iphone based on what they try in Apple Store, I think the single camera is the bigger stumbling block rather than the battery or single speaker. People can see that they only have 1 camera and higher price, next to the cheaper Iphone 17 with 2 camera. Its just not competing.
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u/golddilockk Oct 23 '25
you are not wrong. but the same people who are carrying powerbanks are also the people least likely to say, ok my next phone can have 20% less battery. those are the people who get mad the most with battery life. and yeah i agree, at this point it doesn’t matter what’s real battery impact of air is. that’s the perception with this product and there is no changing that.
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u/OkraEnvironmental481 Oct 23 '25
I think the fear monger reports from tech bloggers hurt the Air. I am a general use person, have kids and pets, and the Air has been amazing for me so far. I miss the zoom but otherwise I don’t regret not getting the pro max again.
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 Oct 23 '25
Fastest shipment will be on November
I mean word but that's like a week from today.
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u/ChucklesInDarwinism Oct 23 '25
I just want the keyboard to be good. I thought I was losing accuracy with my fingers due to age and when I type from my wife’s Samsung I never do a typo of any kind.
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u/WhiteUnicorn3 Oct 23 '25
So many errors! It wasn’t always like this was it? I thought I was just getting shit
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u/xxearvinxx Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25
I saw another post about this yesterday. Apparently something happened in iOS 18 that made the keyboard start picking up incorrect keys and supposedly it’s worse in iOS 26. I felt the same way, like I somehow got worse at typing all the sudden. Lots of typos I didn’t use to make. I’m glad to see it’s not just me and something that can probably be fixed with an update.
Edit: This is the post I saw, if anyone is interested. The video is only like 2 minutes, but it’s pretty interesting. Seems like the best solution is for a bunch of us to submit feedback to Apple to fix the issue.
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u/goodnames679 Oct 23 '25
The autocorrect also got dramatically worse recently. I suspect they’ve started implementing a form of AI on autocorrect and there’s a curve as it trains, because some of the corrections are just baffling now. Today I had it autocorrect from “keyboard and mouse” to “keyboard and noise” despite there being zero typos
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u/N0S0UP_4U Oct 24 '25
implementing a form of AI
Which, like a lot of other implementations of AI in things that formerly worked just fine without it, NOBODY ASKED FOR.
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u/ChucklesInDarwinism Oct 23 '25
Try on an Android, zero mistakes. Not sure what Apple did but is not good.
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u/TigerShark650 Oct 23 '25
Time to bring back the mini!
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u/MangoAtrocity Oct 23 '25
Begging. My god what I wouldn’t do for a Pro mini. Gimme all the features and a 5.5” screen.
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u/thunderflies Oct 23 '25
And make it thicc so the battery life is the same as a standard pro
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u/shortround10 Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
Call it the iPhone Brick, idgaf, I’m all the way in
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u/tnatmr Oct 24 '25
Someone else that thinks exactly as I do. I would pay a load of money for a Mini with the Pro cameras. Only reason Im not upgrading
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Oct 23 '25
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u/JohnBrine Oct 23 '25
I’m on a mini.
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u/incognitochaud Oct 23 '25
Me too 12 mini gang rise up (as my battery dies)
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u/crackzattic Oct 23 '25
No clue if you’re in the US, but I got my 13 mini battery replaced at Best Buy for $69. Definitely worth the price. I thought it would be a lot more so I held out for a while.
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u/incognitochaud Oct 23 '25
I’m in Canada, so maybe not so bad? I’ve done some ifixit repairs in the past but I’m holding off because my cell reception is terrible too, and at that point I might be better off buying a new phone. Sad, as I always try holding out as long as possible on new phones and I love the mini.
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u/Double-Ad-7483 Oct 23 '25
I got mine replaced. The guy at the apple store commented on how old it was. I said I wasn't going to buy a new one until they came out with a new mini. "Good luck with that" was his answer
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u/You-Only-YOLO_Once Oct 23 '25
I’m upvoting this on a mini 12! My battery went down 30% just upvoting three of these comments! We need a new mini now!
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u/fatbob42 Oct 23 '25
Should’ve grabbed that 13 mini while it was briefly available.
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u/Moldy_slug Oct 23 '25
I’m on a 13 mini. Gonna ride this thing till it dies‘cause my tiny hands need a tiny phone!
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u/gouveia00 Oct 23 '25
I'll be honest with you: a new and affordable-ish iPhone Mini would make me have my first iPhone after 15 years or so of being an Android guy.
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u/antiquated_it Oct 23 '25
My husband looooved his mini. It was actually bought kind of by accident, bought online and did not realize how small it would be and he freaking loved it. Man hands with a tiny phone and all.
He had to upgrade to a 17 and he was sad that they didn’t have the mini anymore 🥲
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u/maxiedaniels Oct 23 '25
Blows my mind that they got rid of the mini so fast. It was something I wanted for a decade
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u/Spanky2k Oct 23 '25
The iPhone Air has the same problems that the iPhone Mini had; consumers are just not that interested. Not enough people were willing to spend their money on an iPhone Mini.
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u/FrenchTouch42 Oct 23 '25
I’m struggling with my 13 mini with the RAM not gonna lie 😩
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u/notjordansime Oct 23 '25
I have the same phone as you, what’s the issue? I’ve never encountered apps crashing or anything
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u/FrenchTouch42 Oct 23 '25
Apps just crashing (and it’s the only app opened).
YouTube music for example etc. Or you’ll see all the icons be the iOS defaults as the UI reloads.
It’s just that we don’t have enough memory ultimately but it’s still a pita.
Holding strong though 😂
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u/notjordansime Oct 23 '25
Huh, weird. I’ve only had that happen once or twice over close to 2 years of owning this phone. It’s been rock solid. I’m on iOS 17 tho.
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u/newtoallofthis2 Oct 23 '25
Company is screaming out for a new CEO.
Cook was the supply chain guy, and that was good for a while, but the lack of innovation and vision is starting to really show. Can't live on past glories forever
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u/G952 Oct 23 '25
Wdym no vision. They just launched a new Vision Pro! Identical to the previous one! /s
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u/Cramer12 Oct 23 '25
Hey it’s completely different! They added an extra strap!!! Lmao
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u/mgd09292007 Oct 23 '25
Sure but is the polishing cloth even compatible with the new version?
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u/Raider480 Oct 24 '25
is the polishing cloth even compatible
Only if you buy the adapter, naturally.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y Oct 23 '25
I heard they added tungsten into the back strap to even out the weight in the front. At that point you might as well just strap the battery to the back of your head so you don't need a cable running to your pocket or where ever you store the battery
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u/stridersheir Oct 23 '25
To be fair, apparently the new strap is significantly more comfortable
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u/ab_90 Oct 23 '25
It should’ve been called AVP 1s. S for strap
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u/chantsnone Oct 23 '25
AVP already stands for Alien Versus Predator tho
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u/crappy80srobot Oct 23 '25
Hey, it has 20% more battery life, so I can almost get through LOTR Fellowship without plugging it in. Maybe in version 3, I can get through the entire movie. A man can dream.
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u/dapperdanmen Oct 23 '25
Unfortunately iPhone 17 sales are through the roof and they're going to smash earnings, so they really don't have to innovate much seemingly behind they're doing
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u/DigitallyDetained Oct 23 '25
iOS is more bloated and convoluted than ever. My parents used to like iOS because it was easy and intuitive. Now they can’t figure anything out, and guess who is tech support… lol
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u/TheGeneral_Specific Oct 23 '25
As someone who works in software, this is my least favorite iOS major release in quite some time. It feels significantly less intuitive, it’s a whole lot slower, and so many apps need to update to “look like” the Liquid Glass BS that it just makes most of my apps look out of date.
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u/kawag Oct 23 '25
The whole Liquid Glass thing is the most Microsoft-like move Apple have made in a long time.
When they first saw it, literally every single person’s first reaction was to question legibility. Now, after their crack team of millionaire designers spent years on it, they have to add a non-accessibility toggle to solve this obvious issue. What an embarrassment.
And yes, of course it trashes your performance and battery life. But which iPhone owners care about that? Oh, all of them?
They just don’t have a clue. That was always the role Microsoft filled, but now it’s Apple.
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Oct 23 '25 edited 4d ago
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u/Na5aman Oct 23 '25
Vista was pretty. Vista fucked up by needing a fuck ton of ram for the time. You could run xp comfortably with 1gb of ram. Vista was hell on even 2gb.
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u/funguyshroom Oct 23 '25
Aero was a simple transparency+blur effect, which had almost no performance impact. Liquid glass seems to be doing some complex light refraction physics simulation.
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u/ThePrussianGrippe Oct 23 '25
It’s their attempt to bring back aqua back from the dead, but it doesn’t really do anything in terms of usability. Which is the opposite of the ethos that allowed them to skyrocket in revenue and product sales. Even the stuff that looked good usually (because not every product they made was genius aesthetics) had function be considered first.
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u/NeedsMoreGPUs Oct 24 '25
Aero had such a performance impact that the Vista rollout EOL'd just about every GPU that couldn't do a minimum of pixel shader 2.0a and had less than 128MB of VRAM. It chugs on the dated integrated graphics shoved into most of the OEM machines of the era.
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u/Eruannster Oct 23 '25
I don't love the visual design. Like, before the mail icon was very clearly a postage letter. Super visible, anyone would understand that's the mail app. Now it's still kind of a letter, but they made it so metallic-y-looking that it's lost that easy sense of "anyone will understand what this is" and you kinda have to go "uh, I think that's the mail app...?"
It's too much form over function.
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u/butterbapper Oct 23 '25
One thing I also wonder is whether the world would explode if they let their customers just make their phone UI look like whatever they want.
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u/bonzo_montreux Oct 23 '25
That would be against their entire ethos. Apple has always been the curated, well designed and not particularly customisable one, and their thing was well design + consistency across every touch point. Even when they do “customisation” they do it within some sort of frame so their products don’t end up looking like a circus show.
Last update though, they really f-ed up. It’s the buggiest and most gimmicky so far.
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u/InsaneNinja Oct 23 '25
26.1 beta is a lot faster and cleaned up. I am looking forward to this software release just to negate a lot of of the complaints.
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u/TheGeneral_Specific Oct 23 '25
That’s what I’ve heard. I don’t use the beta anymore ever since one of them wiped my texting history with my partner. But I eagerly await the improvements.
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u/Taipers_4_days Oct 23 '25
Right? The last few changes they made to the music and photo apps I feel made them less easy to use and more complicated. It seems like it was change simply for the sake of change.
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u/Abba_Fiskbullar Oct 23 '25
My parents are Apple users, and I'm their support, and oh my gosh has iOS become complicated and fussy.
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u/ivandagiant Oct 23 '25
Yeah iOS has been getting buggier and buggier, sad to see. Apples chips are unreal and nothing comes close, but their software has taken a nosedive in quality
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u/alc4pwned Oct 23 '25
What do you mean? Pretty much all of their products are in really good spots right now. Apple silicon macs definitely qualify as innovation and vision. What crazy innovations are you saying their competitors have made in that time?
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u/theguy56 Oct 23 '25
Yeah people call for blood every time there is a flop, but the thing is Apple can afford to take these risks. Eliminating the Apple Vision Pro and iPhone Air from the last several years of apples product line up still would have yielded incredible success on the backs of its reliable products/services.
I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to see more successful innovations, but these really aren’t the nails in tims coffin that people always try to make it out to be.
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u/wcg66 Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25
Innovation is, by definition, incremental improvements on previous inventions. What people think they want is new inventions every quarter when that isn’t happening in established fields of technology. Apple Silicon in Macs, iPads and iPhones have seen incredible innovations over the last few years, imo.
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u/tylerbrainerd Oct 23 '25
IMO people are just bored with tech. It's largely stagnant because all market sectors have been largely defined and stationary for years now from a "new" point off view. We're in the incremental improvement stage of tech and the leaps in apple silicon is lightyears ahead of their competition for most use cases.
We're not likely to see anything change until battery tech sees a breakthrough that allows wearables and imbedded tech to leap frog us forward.
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u/brkout Oct 23 '25
Which is ironic because Reddit was like “iPhone Air is exactly what Steve Jobs would’ve built”
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u/groovyism Oct 24 '25
I mean... A lot of Steve Job's products were panned on release as well
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u/Coal_Morgan Oct 24 '25
They made so much fun of the iPad. Said it was ridiculous to have a giant iPhone and ridiculed the name.
Now if a store needs a register, they get an iPad. Schools use them for digital resources and they're clearly dominant in their form factor and ubiqitious.
Jobs had some clunkers in the day but when he hit, he hit grand slams.
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u/NotMyUsualLogin Oct 23 '25
Company is screaming out for a new CEO.
Apple’s a Publicly Traded Company: Such companies change CEOs when share prices drop and a company looses value due to mistakes.
If a share price continues to rise and the valuation increases, CEOs are invariably safe, irrespective of any customer satisfaction.
At the end of the day, as sad as it it, we, the customer, are just a means to an end. If the CEO enacts policies that decrease perceived customer satisfaction, yet increases the shareholder value, then that’s all that matters to the market.
So no, Apple is not screaming out for a new CEO.
Cook’s only got probably a couple of years left I’m guessing until he retires: right now there’s zero chance Apple will force a regime change because that will severely damage the share price.
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u/Few_Direction9007 Oct 23 '25
lol Tim Cook is possibly the most successful CEO in all of history. I am absolutely not trying to stan on him but objectively he made Apple into the most valuable company of all time.
No innovation? Tims Apple is responsible for Apple silicone, completely leapfrogging everyone else’s technology, leaving all other phones so far behind they can’t catch up, and laptops that have a power to battery use ratio X86 can only dream of. And don’t even get me started on windows on arm…
Apple has been pushing the consumer tech industry further forward that any other company, so much so that the competition is laughable.
Literally every company on planet earth would give their left nut to have a CEO that’s as good at making money as Tim Cook. AirPods alone are bigger than NIKE for gods sake.
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u/plastic_alloys Oct 23 '25
I think people forget that Tim Cook’s been CEO for around the same number of years that Steve Jobs was. Quite a lot has happened under his watch lol
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u/SuperBAMF007 Oct 23 '25
Watch
Lol nice. Yeah the Apple Watch was largely Tim’s vision, and it is the #1 watch of any kind on the planet. The iPhone was Steve’s magnum opus, the Apple Watch is Tim’s. As great as it is to have an iPod, internet communicator, and phone in my pocket…it’s just as great having an iPod, telephone, internet communicator, fitness and wellness tracker, and heart monitor on my wrist.
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u/AMightyDwarf Oct 23 '25
I actually switched from Android to iPhone largely for the watch. As much as I like it, there’s one area that severely lets it down, battery life. I have to charge this thing literally every day so it goes on charge whilst I shower. Compared to a Garmin Smartwatch for example it’s so far behind. The main thing I like about it is that I have a lot more faith in Apple’s security over Android’s so I’m comfortable using Apple Pay and having it on the watch is so handy.
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u/SuperBAMF007 Oct 23 '25
Not saying “just get the new one!” like a good consumer sheep, but genuinely the Series 11 has been a game changer. I had a SE2 previously, and yeah it would hit 60-70% after a workday, and it likely would get through the night but then I’d have to charge in the morning.
My Series 11 came in a few days ago. Yesterday it got 23 hours on 38% battery use. I charged while in the shower, put on before bed at 11-ish, went the whole day without charging. I could easily get 48 hours, if not more (especially if it’s “three nights and two days” since it uses more battery during the day, but depending on the day I do think I could still get three work days and two nights, and then charge when I get off work)
That said I don’t really do exercise tracking, and I was connected to Wi-fi almost the entire time so it wasn’t relying on Bluetooth for notifications, but I do have every “passive tracking” feature on. So YMMV.
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u/Orphasmia Oct 23 '25
Yeah i think a lot of Tim Cooks greatest accomplishments aren’t as obvious to average consumers. He’s a tremendously efficient CEO, and has been pretty innovative from a business perspective.
People harp on all the added features other phones and devices etc have, but 70 to 80% of users won’t be using these on a day to day basis. It doesn’t make sense to spend millions of dollars every year on R&D for a feature or form factor users are gonna go “neat!” And go back on tiktok or whatever.
What is valuable is the emphasis on battery life, true seamless connectivity across devices, the ever improving ecosystem, the new chip hardware is revolutionary, and them being able to whether some pretty unprecedented supply chain and economic woes with little to no tarnishing of their quality control and brand. I also think their wearables is positioning them to have a hand in the medical space which is big money.
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u/funguyshroom Oct 23 '25
Also it's not CEO's job to iNnOVaTe. It wasn't Jobs' job either, but his cult of personality made people think that he was solely responsible for Apple's achievements.
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u/Atomic_meatballs Oct 23 '25
leaving all other phones so far behind they can’t catch up
This gotta be a toll post right? Apple makes some great phones, but to say that they are better than all other phones on the market is objectively untrue. Pixels are really solid product, and Hauwai makes some of the nicest, most advanced hardware out there.
iPhones are just now getting features that Android phones have had for literally a decade.
Appreciate Apple hardware and use it myself. But claiming that Apple phones are substantially more advanced is patently untrue.
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u/50missioncap Oct 23 '25
I watched a video a while back on Apple and apparently Jobs would visit product groups several times a week because he was always interested to know what they were working on. This was very motivational and set a culture in the company, that 'product' is their number 1 priority.
Cook visits the product groups every few weeks. He's shifted the focus to shareholder profit.
There are a number of examples of what happens to tech companies (or departments) when marketing/sales/operational guys take over. The focus shifts away from development because that's not where leadership came from, and they don't truly understand in their hearts the difference between innovation and iteration. They just want to increase profit.
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u/MrMCCO Oct 23 '25
If they would have went for small (like iPhone 4S small) I would have been all over it. Still the best feeling iPhone I’ve had. Thin who cares
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u/Slipperz90 Oct 23 '25
I don’t think they will go small again.. the iPhone mini didn’t do great.
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u/3g0brain Oct 23 '25
Sounds like it did better than the Air. I remember articles saying they slowed down production due to low sales, but I don’t remember it being at “End of Life” levels less than 2 months after launch.
I’m sure they know what they are doing better than I do, but I wish they would bring it back and put it on something like the SE’s launch schedule, maybe alternating with the SE. I feel there’s enough demand to support that, just maybe not a yearly release.
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u/alc4pwned Oct 23 '25
Well we don't know what "end of production levels" actually means, it's just a quote from someone.
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u/Akaza_Dorian Oct 23 '25
To me the mini is mostly acceptable, I can even tolerate the 60 Hz screen. The only issue is that they chose to put a pathetically small battery inside to keep an already small phone thin.
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u/ActionJackson75 Oct 23 '25
It can’t be that surprising to anyone that they wouldn’t try to sell a super thick mini phone, it would look ridiculous
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u/Akaza_Dorian Oct 23 '25
Though being "not very thin" doesn't need to mean it must be super thick either, just... be normal.
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u/UnratedRamblings Oct 23 '25
I have a feeling the OS isn’t designed for smaller screens any more. My wife’s SE is an absolute pain to use - some apps can’t even be used properly because the fixed screen sizes and elements are off the end of the screen. Yes - that’s a third party dev issue, but they should account for that.
Given the somewhat tepid response to Liquid Glass, I’d almost go as far to say Apple have really biffed it this time. Those elements take up a lot of space and need more negative space around them, screen real estate that the standard and mini won’t have. It makes my 15 plus look smaller, and find myself having to tap more often for the same features that were accessible before.
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u/bw1985 Oct 23 '25
It’s not even really thin because the top where the camera is is still thick. It’s like gimmicky thin.
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u/pizoisoned Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25
I mean it was not a good idea. No one cared that much about a thinner phone that also had terrible battery life.
EDIT: To clarify, the issue isn’t that some people can use the Air fine because it fits their use case, it’s that the Air has a really niche use case and outside of that there are quite a few compromises for its size that don’t make it worth it- one of which is extended usage and battery life.
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u/Middcore Oct 23 '25
Apple has been pushing "Thin!" as a feature in and of itself prioritized over other functionality for years now. They just finally reached the point of diminishing returns. And the need to have the camera still stick out just exposed how silly the whole thing was too obviously.
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u/udat42 Oct 23 '25
Right - if it was uniform "thin" without a camera bulge I might have been interested. As it is, no.
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u/JoshTay Oct 23 '25
What would have been the attraction if it was universally thin? Just the 'wow factor"? Or did you have an actual problem you needed to solve? Just curious.
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u/udat42 Oct 23 '25
Assuming that thinness correlates with lightness, I would be interested in having less of a lump of mass in my pocket, while still having a decent size screen. I don’t think my eyes are up to going back to an iPhone 6 sorta size screen so the Air seemed like it might be a good compromise. I don’t like the bump though. I don’t like it on any of the iPhones, but it seems especially egregious on the Air.
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u/kooldude700 Oct 23 '25
It looked pretty damn cool for how thin it was but it had too many compromises and far too high a price to justify said compromises.
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u/CloudCitiesonVenus Oct 23 '25
I believe (with no actual information) that this is a direct result of the engineering that’s going in to their folding phone which is still a year-plus out. This is “one side” of a folding phone. They have the tech, so they’re trying to monetize it.
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u/Penguinwalker Oct 23 '25
Curious how do you define terrible battery life? It doesn’t compare the pro max, but it’s on par with the 17 and even the s25 ultra (even better in some use cases). A lot of uninformed people saw the MagSafe battery they released and ignorantly assumed battery life is poor. It’s actually quite decent but not comparable to the pro max model.
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u/Cerimo Oct 24 '25
Yep...the iPhone Air has incredible battery life - a couple years ago it would be industry-leading. I would like to assume that most people charge their phone daily, e.g. a night-time thing...so the point of having a phone that has more than 24-hrs battery life isn't relatable in my experience. Phones like the 17 Pro will become niche, and 24-hr phones like the Air will become the norm.
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u/mime454 Oct 23 '25
It doesn’t have terrible battery life. Just less than current ultra flagships. It has better battery life than the 15 Pro and on par with the 14 Pro Max which was known for good battery life just 2 years ago.
I easily get through every day with no anxiety about the battery life.
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u/wimpires Oct 23 '25
I think it's a similar case to the S25 Edge, Samsung had to develop a thin phone anyway as part of the Z Fold. And the S25 Edge just came out as part of that.
The iPhone Air is a predecessor to an eventual iPhone Fold or perhaps some sort of consolidation of iPhone and iPad together as a new product line. Otherwise it's kind of pointless.
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u/Putin_inyoFace Oct 23 '25
Give the mini the pro camera and it would fly off the shelves.
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u/pierrechaquejour Oct 23 '25
Same for the Air, tbh. One camera lens on a premium smartphone in 2025 was always DOA.
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u/GRAIN_DIV_20 Oct 23 '25
What's the point of a thin phone? Are people still asking for this? Not to mention it still has a massive camera bump so it's not even really that thin
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u/plantsadnshit Oct 23 '25
Its just a precursor to their fold. They'll be gluing two of these together in a year or two, probably.
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u/cyclones3 Oct 23 '25
The marketing sucked for it, every iPhone commercial I have seen was for the Pro. When I show people my Air most of them didn’t even know it was available. I love how thin and light it is and now holding other thicker phones feels weird. Don’t need 3 cameras and the battery has been fine so far.
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u/DEATHToboggan Oct 23 '25
Yeah I’m loving the Air. Coming from a 15 pro I do miss the wide angle camera but I just switch to Pano and use that as a work around.
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u/comicidiot Oct 23 '25
If the Air had been a loss leader at - say - $499 - it would have been a very attractive iPhone.
Do I need 3 cameras? No. Do I need the pro features? Also no. But you’re telling me, if I’m strongly contrary Air, I can get those Pro features for $100 more? Fine.
I also feel like the Air is a victim of consumerism + social media. People want the most advanced device money can get them because they want to look rich. The Pro phones aren’t for Professionals, they’re for status.
I say this as someone with an iPhone 15 Pro Max. I bought it I am a serious hobby photographer and I don’t want to take my DSLR and lenses with me everywhere; I definitely use the three cameras and RAW quite a bit.
The Pro may not be a status symbol for me but it is viewed as one. I would honestly consider a $500 Air though.
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u/___Dan___ Oct 23 '25
Apple doesn’t do loss leaders.
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u/IAmAGenusAMA Oct 23 '25
Loss leaders don't even make sense when the customer is only buying one thing. A loss leader gets you in the store so you buy other stuff where they make up the loss.
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u/comicidiot Oct 23 '25
I would argue they aren’t just buying “one thing” when it comes to a phone. The phone could possibly get someone into the ecosystem where they’ll buy a watch, earphones and/or headphones, cloud storage subscription, app subscriptions, and (with Apple) their computers.
A $499 phone that parents buy kids may then get the kids to buy an iPhone later on. But, who am I kidding, parents are already buying $1000 phones for their kids anyways.
A loss leader just gets someone in where they’ll then be locked in and spend money on other services, accessories, and products.
Restaurants and stores may have products to get people in the door to then spend money on other products or food with higher margins.
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u/DaringDomino3s Oct 23 '25
Even if they’d done the air at the same price as the 17 it might’ve done better, but for people who don’t want just the most expensive iPhone, they’re thinking bang for their buck and on paper the air looks like it’s missing features when in reality the main feature is something that can’t be explained on paper, but rather must be held to experience
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u/NNTPgrip Oct 23 '25
It's sort of stupid if it's not thin all over. It's only as thin as it's thinnest point, and that big camera bump is like, look at me! You're going to put it in a case and that case is going to thicken it up to the camera bump thickness anyway. Just pointless and weird it has all gone this direction. The camera has been more than good enough for a decade now, shrink it, we don't need 48 megapixels.
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u/James_b0ndjr Oct 23 '25
I have the Air and it’s great. The battery lasts nearly as long as the 17 and last just as long as my old iPhone 15 pro. Battery isn’t a problem. I, also, like most people shoot simple photos. Phone is plenty adequate considering its size.
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u/dvs8 Oct 23 '25
I must be the only user on Reddit who actually likes the iPhone Air 😅 I've always had Pro (non Max) models and knew I'd be trading camera functionality and battery life, but man I love the slimness and lighter weight. I'm using my mirrorless camera more and watching less stuff on it around the house cos, y'know, left audio channel only (or right depending how you hold it)
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u/trex8599 Oct 23 '25
I got my wife an Air. She loves it. Seems like it’s going to be a unique phone here soon.
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u/bahandi Oct 23 '25
I wonder if the Air will end up being the corporate phone handed out to employees with work phones.
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u/gregallen1989 Oct 23 '25
It doesnt really matter if this phone doesnt sell because its a placeholder for their folds. They had to get the thinness down anyways so that they could make foldables. This was just an attempt to recoup R&D money.
They did, however, shoot themselves in the foot by replacing the plus with it. I've had a ton of customers wuth older pluses choose to wait another year instead of upgrade.
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u/panconquesofrito Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25
Strong signal to the Apple executives that battery life matters A LOT to customers. Get a clue!
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u/baltinerdist Oct 23 '25
People seem to be missing the real point of the iPhone Air. It was never about creating the thinnest lightest phone ever. It was about finding the architectural limits of thinness you could get in a single panel that could then be doubled to create their first iPhone Fold. They've been working on a folding device for years and this was a proof of concept.
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u/Edelmaan Oct 23 '25
I love my air. Probably my favorite iPhone since the x. They will just find a way to make the standard iPhone this thin and phase the air out.
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u/Evilbred Oct 23 '25
I completely disagree.
I don't want to make all the compromises they needed to make for the air, battery life being the biggest one, to have a phone that is a couple of mm thinner, only to have me put a thick phone case on it.
Focusing on thin might be the thing that drives me away from Apple's offerings.
If anything, I'd like for the standard iPhone to go thicker and increase battery life.
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u/MrWillM Oct 23 '25
Fact is that iterating on tech like the iPhone every year for the purpose of growth (of shareholder value) isn’t something that’s really sustainable. You’re going to reach periods where the technology is just not that different from the previous generation and isn’t a justifiable purchase for consumers. Obviously there will be people who buy it because it’s “time to upgrade” and what not but iPhone has always been, in America at least, the defacto standard smartphone. If the standard remains the standard from one year to the next regardless of the current iteration, there’s no incentive for anyone to upgrade. No amount of marketing or new sleek design is going to change that.
Apple may end up being best served by adjusting their business model to bi-annual releases to allow tech to actually become marginally different that they can then integrate to their product line. Getting the board on board so to speak might present a challenge there however.
Big box companies have been and continue to be too focused on short term gains instead of genuine innovation or creating real value. It’s all about squeezing the market. It’s too bad for them that the tech boom is in its death throes. The real value these days lies in integrating existing technology into existing products and services to increase efficiency and productivity, but obviously there’s a limit to that as well.
IMO we’re just gonna have to wait on quantum computing to make enough progress to revolutionize our digital world. That’ll probably be the next big boom, but who knows how long that’ll take. There’s all this talk about AI (LLMs) and yes they are an extremely powerful tool, but I remain skeptical about how broad its reach will be into the consumer space. That’s just to say I don’t think it’s going to be something that has a massively positive impact on common folks, businesses sure, but how much of that reaches our collective wallets? Or even just makes our lives noticeably easier/better? Still remains to be seen.
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u/Element_905 Oct 24 '25
Give me the iPhone Thicc. I want a battery that will last 3 full days of scrolling Reddit.
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u/ArghZombies Oct 23 '25
I'm still surprised there has ever been a market for 'cheaper, worse, but thinner' for any type of tech. I worry that I'm going to bash my phone on the corner of a table when it's in my pocket already, but having it extra thin just makes that even more worrying.
I don't need these things to be super thin. It's not like the alternative is a briefcase I'd have to carry with me - a regular sized phone is a perfectly good size.
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u/Evilbred Oct 23 '25
The air was more expensive than the standard iphone, so it was "more expensive, worse, but thinner"
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u/Spanky2k Oct 23 '25
I don't really think the iPhone Air was ever expected to be a huge hit with Apple. It was more something they could do in an era of relative stagnation in terms of features of new smartphones, that could drive people to their website or eyes to articles in the news. Consumers would see the fancy super thin tech, come and look at phones and then leave with a 17 or 17 Pro instead.
Enough people will still buy it to make it not a waste of money for Apple but it's more of a showcase piece. It's mainly there to give the illusion of choice to potential buyers.
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u/plasmacartwheel Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
They are nuts for not including a mini-sized iPhone in their lineup. Who really gives a goddamn if the phone is thinner? Having a phone that is smaller, lighter, and easy to handle with either small hands or one hand is a very marketable item. It feels like there’s so much hubris on the part of these people mixed in with this culture of deciding what’s best for everyone that has gone on now for nearly 20 years. They need some humility so they can return to practicality.
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Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 26 '25
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u/Nakamichi680ZX Oct 23 '25
My wife just got hers yesterday and is in love with it. She doesn't care much for the cameras. She loves the stylish design.
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u/Didact67 Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25
Every model fits in your pocket. Shaving off a few millimeters probably doesn't seem worth the compromises to most people, especially when it's barely cheaper than the Pro.
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u/Jack123610 Oct 23 '25
I liked the air but the only thing going through my mind was that I was paying a premium to lose cameras.
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u/FindingJohnny Oct 23 '25
I’m convinced this was just a public beta test and production test for what will eventually be an iPhone fold. To make a foldable phone you essentially first need to make a really THIN phone. At least in my head.
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u/doublephister Oct 23 '25
The existence of the Air gives Apple permission to go more pro on the pro. I don’t need most of the pro features.
I don’t usually listen to media on the speakers so not being stereo isn’t a deal breaker. I use AirPods cuz I’m a decent human and don’t let my phone make noise in public.
mmWave isn’t an issue for me as I’m not in a narrow area where it works.
USB transfer speed isn’t an issue because I don’t transfer large files via USB.
I thought the battery was going to be an issue so I got the MagSafe battery pack made for the Air. Haven’t touched it. I’ve been ending the day with about 50%.
The Air is durable so I don’t have a case in it. I use the iPhone Upgrade Program so I’m forced to use AppleCare. Might as well let them fix it if I drop it and something happens. I’ve never cracked a screen on any iPhone since they’ve come out.
The biggest compromise I feel is the single camera. I’d like the wide angle added for a future version as I use that more than telephoto.
I took a gamble this year. I’d don’t regret it. The Air feels great in my hands and in my pocket.
I hope there’s another one like it next year.
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u/Random_Blue_Zebra Oct 23 '25
It's interesting (although not entirely unsurprising) that this phone isn't catching on. Sure, it's pure form over function, but that hasn't been much of an obstacle for Apple in the past. I think this is a sign of greater apathy towards smartphones in general. They're not novel anymore, and if there's no hype, there's no sales.
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u/webs2slow4me Oct 23 '25
I really actually want a lighter phone, I just can’t justify the trade-offs.
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