In 2025, Apple is planning to debut a thinner version of the iPhone that will be sold alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. This iPhone 17 "Air" will be about two millimeters thinner than the current iPhone 16 Pro, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
The iPhone 16 Pro is 8.25mm thick, so an iPhone 17 that is 2mm thinner would come in at around 6.25mm. At 6.25mm, the iPhone 17 Air would be Apple's thinnest iPhone to date. The thinnest iPhone we've seen so far was the iPhone 6, which measured in at 6.9mm. iPhones got thicker with the iPhone X and beyond, as Apple increased thickness to provide more space for the battery, camera lenses, Face ID hardware, and more.
Apple will equip the iPhone 17 Air with its own custom-designed 5G modem chip, and that chip is smaller than 5G modem chips from Qualcomm. Gurman says that Apple focused on making the chip more integrated with other Apple-designed components to save space within the iPhone, and that space savings is what allowed it to create the slimmed down iPhone 17 Air without sacrificing battery life, the camera, or the display quality.
Prior rumors have also suggested that the iPhone 17 Air will be somewhere between 5mm and 6mm thick, and the ~6mm thickness has now been proposed by multiple reliable sources. The iPhone 17 Air is expected to have a display that's around 6.6 inches in size, and it will also feature a single-lens rear camera.
The iPhone 17 Air will be one of three devices that are set to get a custom Apple modem chip in 2025, with Apple also bringing the chip to the iPhone SE early in the year and a low-cost iPad.
As Apple improves its modem chip design, the saved space could allow for "new designs" such as a foldable iPhone. According to Gurman, Apple is continuing to explore foldable iPhone technology. Apple is aiming to phase out Qualcomm modems across a three-year period as Apple introduces increasingly more powerful modem chips.
Eventually, Apple could debut a system-on-a-chip that includes a processor, modem, Wi-Fi chip, and other parts, which would save additional space and allow for tighter integration between hardware components.
