Pros & Cons: Does the iPhone Air Have a Future?

With the iPhone Air (Mac & i test), Apple has added a new form factor to its smartphones for the first time in years. But is it enough to make the device thinner than any iPhone before?

How much future does the device have if a foldable is released next year? Mac & i editors Sebastian Trepesch and Ben Schwan discuss.

PER

The iPhone Air shows what Apple is good at: designing a chic, slim form factor so that even competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge are diluted. Together with the polished titanium case, this creates a piece of magic. In contrast to the unsuccessful iPhone Plus, it conveys lifestyle. Of course, a marketing department has done a great job behind it. But these soft properties are also part of a product.

But the iPhone Air is also technically impressive. In benchmark tests, the chip surpasses last year’s Pro model. RAM, display, selfie camera – everything like the current Pro. The battery life is at least on the level of last year’s models. That will be enough for the many owners who put their iPhone on a MagSafe charger in the office. On the S-Bahn journey home, no one will manage to empty the battery with TikTok. Nor to celebrate it empty in a long party night. Only when it comes to an extended day trip with lots of videos and navigation in poor reception could the battery life become scarce. But honestly, every iPhone Pro owner has a power bank with the right capacity in their pocket.

Remember when Steve Jobs made the first MacBook Air out of an envelope in 2008? Ben, I and maybe you are not in the target group, we own a heavier, more powerful MacBook Pro. Nevertheless, the slim Mac has enthusiastic followers. The iPhone Air could suffer a similar fate. (tre)

CONTRA

If you buy the iPhone Air for at least 1199 euros, you may be hip and fashion-conscious, but you will soon be annoyed. The fact that the new device replaces the below-average selling Plus models – which in turn replaced the underselling Mini models – is a bad omen. Apple likes to use the gap between standard and Pro devices as a field of experimentation (for example with its own C1X modem chip, which is only in the Air) and then just see if and how it continues.

The problem with the iPhone Air, however, is above all: It is an expensive transitional model that sits between all stools. It’s not a standard iPhone, and it’s not a Pro either. And as impressive as the thinness is, the sparrows are already whistling it from the rooftops that a first iPhone foldable will be released in less than a year. This will probably be even thinner than the Air when unfolded – with a massively larger screen. The problem of the weak Air battery, which Apple freely admits by offering an expensive MagSafe additional battery, should not exist there either.

I would have preferred Apple to have launched its foldable faster than to be distracted by the iPhone Air and bring a half-finished product. In future years, it may be that standard iPhones will be as thin as the Air or thinner. But then they would have to do without all the compromises that Apple is now imposing on buyers. (BSC)

Finally, in the Pro & Cons: Are the energy labels for iPhone & Co. helpful?