The iPhone 17 Air makes no sense to me

Apple hasn't exactly been adventurous with the design of the iPhone in recent years. Since 2020's iPhone 12, most models have featured the same flat edges and display sizes, and the overall design of the iPhone has looked pretty consistent since, well, forever. But rumours are pointing to something slightly, if not completely, different in 2025.

The so-called 'iPhone 17 Air' will allegedly offer the slimmest iPhone form factor ever, and could be as slim as 5.5mm at its thinnest point (the iPhone 16 is 7.8mm). We're now starting to see the first concept and dummy models depicting the rumoured device – and I'm feeling more confused about the iPhone 17 Air than ever, let alone sure it'll be one of the best camera phones.

A concept dummy model based on rumours has been posted by regular Apple leaker Ben Geskin, showing an extremely thin phone with a curiously Google Pixel-esque camera array sitting horizontally atop the rear of the device.

Regular readers of my Creative Bloq oeuvre (hello, both of you) will know that I've been lamenting the move towards bigger and bigger phones for a while now. While I loved the iPhone mini, that phone was unceremoniously killed off after just two years and replaced with its exact opposite, the iPhone Plus. For someone who prefers a phone to be unassuming and easy to use one-handed, these was a sad, nay, tragic, development.

So on one hand (thank you), a more svelte iPhone can only be a good thing. And yet, if these concepts are accurate, I can't help but wonder whether the trade-offs will make the thinness worth it. For one thing, a phone that thin is surely going to have a much smaller battery. It could be delicate and prone to bending, and then there's that massive camera array which, if it does take up the entire top of the device, seems to defeat the point of the thinness anyway. And despite that, it's currently rumoured to feature a single lens as opposed to the two or three the current line up offers. The screen also appears to be a very similar size to that of the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro, meaning this is only a 'small' device in terms of thickness. So not exactly more portable.

With all of this in mind, I find myself asking: why? While the iPhone mini made sense a model that was differentiated from the rest, this just looks like thinness for thinness's sake. Of course, it's early in the rumour cycle for the iPhone 17 line up – while reports currently suggest this will be a third model to sit between the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro, it's possible it could end up replacing one of them. But as an extra option, it just doesn't look different enough to me.

Time will tell whether the iPhone 17 Air will indeed materialise, but I'll be intrigued to see how Apple manages to justify its existence if so. In the meantime, we've got the iPhone SE 4 to look forward to next week – but I'm not particularly excited for that one either.