Apple’s ultra-thin iPhone Air is a game changer, but can’t match flagship iPhone 17 Pro Max

iPhone 17 Pro Max feature a new design that maximizes performance and delivers an enormous leap in battery life.
Apple ‘s launch event sent a mixed message to customers. The company hailed the ultrathin iPhone Air as a “game changer,” according to CEO Tim Cook, positioning it as a must-have for Apple users. However, despite its sleek design, the device sacrifices key features like battery life, audio, and camera quality. In contrast, the flagship iPhone 17 Pro Max offers much more in terms of capabilities and practical upgrades, quietly excelling in the functionalities users prioritize most, even if it wasn’t the brightest-lit star of the show.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
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The iPhone 17 Pro is the closest we’ve come to the kind of seismic upgrade we saw with the iPhone 12 Pro in 2020 or the iPhone X in 2017 (or the iPhone 6 Plus several years before that). In a market defined by incremental improvements from Apple and rival Samsung Electronics Co., this new product family is compelling and delivers on the iPhone’s main strengths.
1. Durability: First, the front glass uses a new material called Ceramic Shield 2 that is tougher and three times more scratch-resistant than prior iPhone glass. Second, by moving to an aluminum unibody frame, the phone now has less glass on the back. That means the device has fewer vulnerable spots for cracks. There’s still some glass in the rear — to enable the wireless charging area — but that portion is now also made from the tougher Ceramic Shield material.
2. Fixing Overheating: Apple says this handles heat much better than titanium (who knew?), and we have the inclusion of a vapor chamber to cool off the device’s internals. The approach also helps improve performance and shows that Apple is being pragmatic.
3. Cameras: The camera system is getting a big upgrade as well, moving to 48-megapixel sensors across the board and vastly improving optical zoom. Apple is going squarely after online content creators and even trying to get professionals to replace their pricey rigs with iPhones. The transition is happening, and these new models may speed that up.
4. Processor Performance: While the A19 Pro chip is available in both the iPhone Air and the Pro lines, that’s not really the whole story. The “full” version of the chip — one that has six central processing cores and six graphics cores — is only coming to the Pro phones.
5. Battery Life: Apple gave the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max models tremendous increases in this area, adding six hours of video playback to both versions. That amounts to 39 hours on a single charge for the 6.9-inch phone and 33 hours on the 6.3-inch model. Another nice touch: You can now juice up 50% of the battery in just 20 minutes, an improvement from the prior 30 minutes.
There’s definitely some allure to owning a slick new device. But I think buyers will quickly miss the better battery life and camera capabilities of the iPhone they are replacing. In fact, the consumers who would be most likely to buy the latest iPhone are probably the same people who prize battery life and camera performance the most. It’s not two different demographics.

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MacDailyNews Take: Regardless (and we’re ordering iPhone 17 Pro Max units), the iPhone Air will sell very well. It’s just way better than we expected, with an A19 Pro chip, a camera that’s more than capable enough for the average user, and very respectable battery life out of the gate!

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