Apple’s iPhone Air is an AI-driven mission in disguise

Available in four beautiful colors, the new polished titanium on iPhone Air has an elegant mirrored finish.
Apple on Tuesday debuted the all-new iPhone Air, the thinnest iPhone ever made, with pro performance. iPhone Air features a breakthrough titanium design that is elegant and light yet strong, with an innovative internal architecture that enables the latest iPhone experiences.
The back of iPhone Air is now protected with Ceramic Shield, and the front cover uses Ceramic Shield 2, delivering 3x better scratch resistance, making iPhone Air more durable than any previous iPhone.
iPhone Air also features a stunning 6.5-inch Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion up to 120Hz. With the most Apple-designed chips in an iPhone — the powerhouse A19 Pro, N1, and C1X — iPhone Air is the most power-efficient iPhone ever made. Paired with the redesigned internal architecture and software optimizations, iPhone Air has fantastic all-day battery life.
A powerful 48MP Fusion Main camera enables the equivalent of four lenses with incredible image quality, and the innovative 18MP Center Stage front camera takes selfies to the next level.
iPhone Air is available in four finishes: space black, cloud white, light gold, and sky blue.
Krystal Hu for Reuters:
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The Air effectively replaces the Plus, which historically accounted for 5%–7% of iPhone shipments. With a sharper price and the novelty effect, analysts expect the $999 starting point to drive upgrades.
Making a device this thin without killing the battery is an AI-driven mission in disguise. Why? Because on-device AI is a notorious power hog. The hardware innovation in Apple’s A19 Pro chip paves the way for a device ready for the AI apps age.
As my colleague Stephen Nellis explains, this new chip contains a bevy of features designed to handle AI, including a new graphics processing unit, or GPU, and what Apple calls a “Neural Accelerator” attached to each GPU computing core. Taken together with other parts of the chip that can be tapped for AI, such as the chip’s dedicated Neural Processing Unit, or NPU, Apple is crafting a device where tasks such as generating text or images can be routed to the most power-efficient way to handle them.
Air is an AI hardware test and a precursor for more fun formats including a folding phone. Chinese brands have set expectations around thin slabs and compact foldables, and Apple has been lagging there. If the Air delivers credible battery life and a satisfying camera, it could be a differentiator in hyper-competitive markets like China.

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MacDailyNews Take: If iPhone Air can be this powerful with “all-day” battery life, imagine the capabilities of the iPhone Pro models!

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