Apple touts ‘game-changer’ slimmer iPhone Air
Apple has showed off a new, slimmer iPhone “Air” model with a high-density battery and a brand new processor.
The iPhone Air model was the star of the annual product launch event on Tuesday (US time), with CEO Tim Cook calling it a “game changer”.
Apple said the model was its most durable iPhone yet.
It will use the A19 Pro, a processor chip that Apple said it had tweaked for better energy efficiency and performance to match the device’s thinner battery.
Its price – at $US999 ($A1510) in the US – is slotted in between the company’s other models, as analysts had predicted.
The iPhone Air will go head-to-head against Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S25 Edge. Analysts told Reuters it could also be a stepping stone toward competing with Samsung’s folding phones, which are in their seventh generation.
A foldable phone is important for Apple to appeal to customers in China, where consumers like foldables and the company has lost market share.
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“This new device will bring a sense of newness to the iPhone, which has remained the same for too long,” PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore said.
He said the “new and much-improved iPhone line-up looks impressive, which puts [Apple] in a strong position to cater for different segments”.
The company also launched the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro, the latest upgrade to its flagship smartphone. There was also a new version of its AirPods Pro wireless headphones and a blood pressure monitor in its latest Apple Watch.
The company effectively cut or held prices steady on these updated models.
Apple said the iPhone Air will also feature a new “N1” chip to handle Wi-Fi communications and new “C1X” modem for phone data.
Chips for those functions in Apple’s premium devices were long supplied by Broadcom and Qualcomm, whose shares were down 2.2 per cent and 0.5 per cent respectively late on Tuesday.
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Apple shares were down 1.6 per cent after the company announced pricing of the smartphones.
“This is MacBook Pro levels of compute, in an iPhone,” Tim Millet, one of Apple’s chip executives, said during the presentation at the company’s Cupertino, California headquarters.
The iPhone Air will have two cameras and eliminate the physical SIM card slot, freeing up more room for battery capacity.
Apple said the base model iPhone 17 will have a brighter, more scratch-resistant screen.
It will also have a better front-facing camera with a differently shaped sensor to make horizontal selfies look better.
The new AirPods Pro 3 will feature live translation of languages.
Apple also said that if both people in a conversation were wearing the new AirPods Pro 3, the earbuds would translate conversations in near real time.
Apple said the AirPods will cost $US249, the same as the previous generation. They will become available on September 19.
The blood pressure monitor feature was pending regulatory approval, Apple said.
The watch will not detect every case of high blood pressure. But the company said it expected the feature to notify a million people and will make it available in 150 countries.
