Apple's iPhone 17 Air just got a little less vaporous.
Thanks to a leaked set of dummy phones from reviewer Sonny Dickson, we've gotten what looks to be a solid preview of the iPhone 17 lineup, and there's one phone in the array that looks a little, uh... thin.
See if you can spot the outlier.
Here’s your first look at the iPhone 17 dummies, Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/WnOjD71IbaMarch 16, 2025
While we still don't know which device is which in this lineup of dummy phones, I think it'd be easy to extrapolate from its size that it's the iPhone 17 Air, Apple's rumored ultra-thin device.
And I have to say, if the iPhone 17 Air is as thin as this mockup suggests, Apple can take my money now.
What we (maybe) know about the iPhone 17 Air so far
The iPhone 17 Air obviously hasn't been confirmed yet, but we've gotten some fairly credible drips.
According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the iPhone 17 Air "will be about 2 millimeters thinner than existing iPhones." For comparison, a nickel is 1.95 millimeters thick.
Apple's existing iPhone 16 and 16 Plus measure 7.8 millimeters thick, and the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max are 8.25 millimeters thick. Gurman doesn't specify which existing iPhones the 17 Air will be 2 millimeters thinner than, but it's most likely the base iPhone 16.
That would make the rumored Air an impressive 5.8 millimeters thick, making the iPhone 17 Air the thinnest phone ever made by Apple. It would beat out the previous holder of that title, the iPhone 6, at 6.9 millimeters thick.
Based on the recent dummy phones we've seen, that estimation looks to be pretty spot on. The iPhone 17 Air, if dummies are to be believed, is a great deal thinner than its counterparts.
Shut up and take my money
As someone who hates how big phones have become in recent years, I find the prospect of a phone as thin as the iPhone 17 Air tantalizing.
I want a phone that doesn't feel like a brick in my pocket, and the iPhone 17 Air might deliver on that front. I doubt it'd only be a big deal for me.
If Apple manages to compress all that iPhone goodness into a lighter and thinner package, it would arguably be the biggest iPhone iteration we've seen in a long time—since the now-dead iPhone Mini.
All of this is still speculation, but the idea of a thinner, lighter iPhone makes me feel a genuine desire to trade in my phone and upgrade — and that's saying something.
I'm still holding onto the iPhone 13 because of its size and because I haven't felt an urgent need to upgrade in more than four generations.
Of course, before I buy an iPhone 17 Air, I still have many questions to answer. One of the biggest is whether the battery life will be adequate.
That's typically the biggest downside to most devices prioritizing weight and thinness over other features. Then there's price; if the iPhone 17 Air is vastly more expensive than other models, I'm not sure I'll pay Pro Max prices.
Either way, the iPhone Air 17 has me seriously considering an upgrade for the first time in a long time, proving that thinner is better.
