iPhone Air: looks at the expense of battery life

Is it really worth trading hours of battery life for fewer millimeters of thickness? Apple seems convinced that it is, and this Tuesday it presented a renewed range of phones headed by the iPhone Air, only 5.6 millimeters thick, which promises to be the object of desire for fans of aesthetics willing to always carry an external battery in their bag.

The presentation, pre-recorded exclusively with iPhone 17 Pro, began with an apt quote from patron saint Steve Jobs: "Design is not just how things look, but how they work." A difficult phrase to refute when it comes to Apple, but one that takes on special irony when a phone is presented that sacrifices functionality for appearance. The event has confirmed the rumors that had been circulating for months: Apple is following in the footsteps of Samsung, which launched the Galaxy S25 Edge in May This slimming trend.

The premium market is growing

Apple's new releases come at a good time for the premium smartphone segment. According to Counterpoint Research, the global smartphone market over $600 grew 8% year-over-year in the first half of 2025, reaching an all-time high that represents more than 60% of global revenue. Apple continues to dominate the segment with a 62% share, despite dropping 3 points year-over-year, followed by Samsung (20%), while Xiaomi and Google are recording the most spectacular growth.

iPhone Air: a protagonist with compromises

The star of the presentation was the iPhone Air. At 5.6 millimeters thick, it becomes the thinnest iPhone ever, dethroning the 2014 iPhone 6 at 6.9 millimeters, and even thinner than the Galaxy S25 Edge (5.8 millimeters). This new model replaces the Plus variant of the basic model in the iPhone range. This extreme design comes with inevitable compromises: it only has a 48-megapixel rear camera and the battery is smaller than its siblings. It's also the first iPhone to be released worldwide without a physical SIM card, only with an eSIM, a logical decision to save thickness.

However, Apple has played its cards pretty well. The Air features a 6.5-inch ProMotion display with a 120Hz refresh rate, matching the Pro models in this regard. It also features a high-density battery that could offset the reduced capacity, as well as new, supposedly more efficient Apple-made connectivity chips (cellular, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi) that should partially offset the smaller battery size. All of this remains to be seen in practice.

The rest of the range: evolution without revolution

The standard iPhone 17 abandons the 6.1-inch diagonal in favor of the 6.3-inch Pro models, standardizing sizes. The big news is that it also includes a 120 Hz display, breaking the barrier that Apple maintained as exclusive to the Pro models. As for the cameras, the iPhone Air comes with one, the iPhone 17 has two, and the iPhone 17 Pro has three. The iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max feature the most visible design change in recent years. They adopt a horizontal camera block that occupies the upper rear area and are part of a new unibody aluminum casing that facilitates heat dissipation and abandons the titanium of the previous Pro models. The telescopic camera increases from 12 to 48 megapixels and incorporates 8x optical zoom, compared to the 5x of the iPhone 16 Pro.

For the first time in an iPhone, the Pro incorporates 12 GB of RAM instead of the usual 8 GB, a necessary improvement for AI processing. The four new iPhones use various variants of Apple's new A19 processor. They all come standard with iOS 26, which debuts what Apple calls "Liquid Glass visual language", a major aesthetic reform that unifies the look of all Apple devices, from Macs to Vision Pro glasses.

Watches and headphones: incremental improvements

Apple has also unveiled the Apple Watch Series 11 (starting at €449), which incorporates high blood pressure detection as its main health innovation. The company expects the new Watch 11 to notify one million people of hypertension during the first year. In addition to sleep stage details, the watch now provides a numerical sleep quality score each morning, following the trend of its rivals. The cellular version is the first compatible with 5G networks. The Apple Watch Ultra 3 (starting at €899) debuts satellite connectivity for emergency situations in remote areas, a feature inherited from the latest iPhones.

A new version of the basic Watch SE (starting at €249) was also unveiled, which now lets you see the time without turning on the screen and charges twice as fast. As is tradition, Apple has shown testimonials from users whose lives have been saved by the features of its watches, an emotional device that works and is now part of the predictable script of each presentation.

The AirPods Pro 3 (€249) arrive after almost two years of waiting with the new H3 chip and health sensors to monitor heart rate during exercise. Apple boasts noise cancellation that's twice as effective as the previous model. They also include real-time AI translation, a feature that competes directly with the Gemini in the Samsung Galaxy Buds, but which, as usual, doesn't include Catalan.

Price increase with nuances

As expected, Apple is raising prices, but it's not so much a general increase as a repositioning of the range. The standard iPhone 17 (from 959 to 1,209 euros) maintains its entry-level price, but offers better value by reducing the maximum price by 130 euros. The Pro Max also retains the initial price (1,469 euros), but goes up to 2,469 euros in the new 2 TB capacity, aimed at very specific users such as content creators and professionals.

The real increases are concentrated in two models: the iPhone 17 Pro (from 1,319 to 1,819 euros) costs 100 euros more than the 16 Pro in the entry-level model, but the biggest increase is the new iPhone Air (between 1,219 and 1,719 euros), 16 Plus 1,719 euros that it replaces.

The price of being thin

Thinner models have become the new excuse for raising prices in a mature market where the differences between generations are becoming less noticeable. Samsung already applied this strategy with the Galaxy S25 Edge, increasing its price by 20% compared to equivalent models. Apple only adds 12% more, but eliminates a camera. The question is whether consumers will be willing to pay more for thinner phones with fewer features.