Updated November 19, 2024
• A counter rumor has emerged that states that the iPhone 17 Air could be the thinnest iPhone ever.
•Apple may be running into design issues that prevent the iPhone 17 Air from being as slim as first rumored.
• New iPhone 17 models including the Slim could feature an Apple-built Wi-Fi chip.
• A report with potential iPhone 17 Slim specs matches many rumors about the alleged model.
Whether you call it the iPhone 17 Slim or the iPhone Air, it sounds like Apple is coming out with a new model next year. And regardless of the name it debuts under in fall 2025, this rumored device should be an ultra-thin handset.
We've heard rumors of new Apple iPhone models that never materialized — the iPhone 16 Ultra, anyone? — but rumors of a slimmer iPhone 17 model have been pretty persistent. And it would certainly be keeping with Apple's move lately toward skinny MacBooks and iPads.
It’s early days for any iPhone Apple plans to release in 2025 — we're still getting used to the iPhone 16 lineup, after all. But enough rumors about the iPhone 17 Slim have emerged to give us a glimpse at what Apple may be working on. And we have a few items on our iPhone 17 Slim wishlist to share, too.
iPhone 17 Slim: Expected price and release date
iPhone release dates are pretty easy to predict, giving every numbered Apple smartphone in the last decade has come out in September (barring the iPhone 12, which had an October unveiling, thanks to Coronavirus). As such, it’s a strong bet that the iPhone 17 Slim will emerge in September 2025, unless it’s pushed back to 2026 or killed off completely.
Price is more difficult to gauge, as it sounds like the iPhone 17 Slim will be a bit of departure from Apple's current lineup. For the past three years, Apple has featured four models — a standard iPhone, a slightly larger Plus model that costs $100 more, and two iPhone Pro models (a regular Pro and a larger, more expensive Pro Max). For the iPhone 17 lineup, the standard iPhone is expected to stick around, as will the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max. So that would make the iPhone 17 Slim something of a replacement for the Plus-sized iPhone.
However, the expectation is that the iPhone 17 Slim wouldn't adopt the $899 starting price of the iPhone 16 Plus or even be a direct replacement for that phone. Rumors suggest we're looking at a handset that costs more than the Pro Max — which currently starts at $1,199 for the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
iPhone 17 Slim: Design and screen
As the Slim name suggests, the most notable thing about the iPhone 17 Slim is likely to be how skinny it will be. We don’t have an actual measurement on that yet, but given its aluminum chassis is predicted to be “significantly thinner” we’re talking about a device that presumably greatly undercuts the 7.8mm depth of the iPhone 16.
Indeed, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman wrote back in June 2024 that this particular iPhone is set to be in “a new class of Apple devices that should be the thinnest and lightest products in the whole tech industry.” So perhaps the target will be something to eclipse even the 2024 iPad Air (6.1mm) or even the 2024 iPad Pro (5.3mm).
This thin frame will reportedly support a 6.6-inch OLED display, which is only slightly smaller than the iPhone 16 Plus’ 6.7-inch panel. Apparently the Slim might have other premium features to make it stand out too, such as a smaller hole and pill-shaped cutout for Dynamic Island.
Apple could slim down the size of this model by turning to OLED panels equipped with a new technology called touch and display driver integration. The technology integrates the touch and display layers of a screen, making the overall panel slimmer.
However, one rumor posted to the Korean website Naver casts some doubt on just how thin an iPhone 17 Slim (or iPhone 17 Air) will be. According to the rumor, technical issues and high costs are stopping Apple from using a battery with a thinner substrate. If true, it could make it very hard for Apple to get the device much thinner than 6.6mm.
As for the display, in an October report, analyst Jeff Pu backed rumors of a 6.6-inch iPhone 17 Slim, while also listing other potential specs we'll discuss below.
The OLED panel will reportedly support the 120Hz ProMotion tech that Apple has previously reserved for its Pro handsets, too.
A recent leak has indicated that the iPhone 17 Air will apparently measure 6mm in thickness. That means that it could be thinner than the iPhone 6, which is 6.9mm thick. However, it will not be the thinnest Apple product, which still goes to the 13-inch iPad Pro, which is just 5.1mm thick.
iPhone 17 Slim: Cameras
There's another way Apple can make sure the iPhone 17 Slim lives up to its name — it can reduce the number of cameras on the back of the phone. Camera sensors need a fair amount of space, and stripping back to just the essentials frees up Apple to reduce the overall size of its phone.
To that end, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes the iPhone 17 Slim will only sport a single 48MP rear lens, rather than the main and ultrawide camera setup found on the iPhone 16 Plus. A 48MP main camera could pull double duty for zoom shots, allowing you to crop in on photos to approximate an 2x optical zoom. Apple has used that approach since the iPhone 15 adopted a 48MP main camera, and those zoom shots have compared well to ones shot with a dedicated telephoto lens in our testing.
For what it's worth, analyst Jeff Pu also backs the iPhone 17 Slim to have a lone 48MP main camera, adding that the phone's front camera will be a 24MP sensor. That claim is consistent with rumors about the rest of the iPhone 17 lineup getting an upgrade from the current 12MP TrueDepth camera on iPhones.
iPhone 17 Slim: Performance and other potential specs
Since the A18 and A18 Pro chipsets power the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro models, it stands to reason that the iPhone 17 lineup including the Slim would turn to the A19 system-on-chip. Just how much of an advance the silicon will be is open to debate, though, as a report claims that Apple won't have a chip built on a 2-nanometer process until the iPhone 18.
if true, that means the A19 powering the iPhone 17 Slim would be a 3nm chip like the A18. That would suggest modest performance gains are on tap.
Apple upped the RAM on its iPhone 16 models to 8GB — all the better to handle those new Apple Intelligence features on device. That's likely to continue with the iPhone 17 Slim, as only the iPhone 17 Pro Max is expected to get a boost to 12GB of memory.
Other current iPhone 17 Slim specs rumors apply to the entire iPhone 17 lineup. For instance, the phones coming out in fall 2025 are tipped to get an Apple-made Wi-Fi chip. This is different from the Apple-built modem that's tipped to debut with the iPhone SE 4 earlier in 2025.
Battery rumors haven't really materialized yet for the iPhone 17 Slim. It's something worth keeping an eye on, as the slimmer size of this phone would make it difficult to include as large a battery as the 4,674 mAh power pack in the iPhone 16 Plus. That battery, plus the efficient A18 chipset, helped the current Plus land a spot on our best phone battery life list.
A report covering all the iPhone 17 models suggests Apple is looking into a new type of glue to hold the batteries of its phones in place. This glue would make it easy to remove the battery without requiring much force — a change that would make it easier to replace your phone's battery.
iPhone 17 Slim: What we want to see
Slim is clearly in with phone makers, as there's a rumor that Samsung is hoping to come with with a thinner Galaxy S25 Ultra model early next year. So how does Apple top the competition with an iPhone 17 Slim?There are some things that we want to ensure aren’t sacrificed on the altar of impossible thinness…
Solid battery life
As we noted, the worry about any super-thin design is that battery capacity will inevitably suffer. Even with a more efficient chipset, we wonder if the iPhone 17 Slim would be able to last as long as the Plus model it's replacing. Any step back would run counter to the battery life gains Apple made with the iPhone 16 lineup.
Decent photography
With the iPhone 17 Slim tipped to have a single 48MP camera, this model could lack the flexibility of other iPhones, which rank among the best camera phones you can buy,. We’re hoping that the iPhone 17 Slim can still produce great photos, especially in low-light conditions..
Plenty of storage
If the iPhone 17 Slim is as expensive as the early rumors suggest, then Apple really had best not be planning to scrimp on the onboard storage.
The base iPhone 16 Pro Max comes with 256GB of storage, but all other iPhone models among Apple's current flagships start at 128GB. That's not going to cut it for a phone with a premium price tag.
iPhone 17 Slim outlook
It will be nearly a year before we see an iPhone 17 Slim (or iPhone Air, if Apple settles on that name). That leaves plenty of time for more rumors to emerge. And we're eager to find out more about this would-be model and what special features it might have to justify what's rumored to be a lofty price tag.
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