“Cupertino, Calif. -- The just-announced iPhone Air is an iPhone maxed out on thinness. It's an engineering and design marvel. But I don't think it's the right upgrade for most people.
Apple spent a lot of time talking about the Air, which is the first major redesign since the iPhone X in 2017. The Air is maybe less intriguing as a thing to buy, and more as a clue to where Apple will take us over the next few years.
The basic iPhone 17, which brings a bunch of under-the-hood upgrades, and the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, which get a new, more durable look and camera improvements, seem more compelling to general iPhone shoppers.
There's a lot more to consider from this year's slate of new iStuff, which also includes next-generation AirPods Pro and Apple Watches. After trying the new iPhones and wearables, here are my biggest takeaways.
The Air is beautiful, but for whom?
The iPhone Air is 0.22 inch thick. That number probably doesn't mean much on the page, but it's seductively thin. Like Hershey's bar thin. (I checked.) And the light titanium body makes the 6.5-inch display feel smaller.
It's a fact: The barely there Air is beautiful. Another fact: The beauty comes at the cost of features we care about.
There's just one rear camera. It has a 48-megapixel sensor capable of standard-angle shots and just a 2x zoom.
And yes, the Air has the same battery life as last year's iPhone 16 Pro (27 hours of video playback). But it has the shortest battery life across the new iPhone lineup. Apple touted power efficiency gains across its chips and software, but efficiency is no substitute for more battery. I'll soon try living with it and report back on any battery compromises I discover.
The Air also costs $999 -- $100 more than the iPhone 16 Plus model it replaces. If you add in the $99 MagSafe magnetic battery pack that Apple is offering to boost battery life, the cost of this basically matches that of a big, beefy, full-featured iPhone 17 Pro.
While this phone isn't a practical choice for me, it's potentially appealing to another audience: the world's largest smartphone market. Apple is going thin to compete head on with Huawei in China, Counterpoint Research's Neil Shah told me. "The only thing missing now is a foldable iPhone."
A foldable phone is basically two thin phones hinged together. Are we now looking at the first half of that goal, which analysts expect to be realized next year? (Apple wouldn't confirm that.)
The day's best news? The iPhone 17.
The most exciting upgrades are to the standard iPhone.
A previously Pro-only feature is trickling down to the $799 model: a 120-hertz ProMotion display. Once you experience this gracefully fluid screen, it's hard to go back. Scrolling is smoother, and the display can be brighter and dimmer than previous iPhone screens. It's going to feel like a big improvement coming from an older phone. That's not the only improvement to the screen. It's more scratch-resistant, too, because of a new ceramic coating.
Screen talk too nerdy? How about better selfies? An 18-megapixel Center Stage front camera is coming to the entire new iPhone lineup. I immediately saw the difference, and the ability to toggle between portrait and landscape orientation without turning the phone sideways is fun and useful.
Bumping up both rear cameras to 48 megapixels is a less obvious improvement and will require some testing. I can't wait to try macro close-ups, another setting borrowed from the Pros, in my budding garden.
The basic 17 starts at Apple's longtime $799 price -- but its storage is now doubled to 256 gigabytes, like the more expensive models.
The Pros got the real redesign.
While the iPhone 17 looks nearly identical to last year's model, the 17 Pro and Pro Max have an entirely different look. Apple says their aluminum build, and ceramic coatings on the screen and on the back, will make them more durable.
There's a big raised bar on the back that Apple is calling the "plateau." The three rear cameras, now all with 48-megapixel sensors, live in this bump. The most impressive thing about the Pros is the zoom.
The difference between optical and digital zoom here is a little tricky -- you get 4x zoom at the full 48 megapixels, and 8x "optical-quality" zoom at a lower 12-megapixel resolution. The photos I took at 8x zoom still looked fantastic on the iPhone's small screen, and like nothing I could have taken before on an iPhone, but I want to see them in print or on my TV before making a judgment.
This year's Pros cost $100 more than last year's, at $1,099. Apple says it's because the storage starts at a higher level (256GB instead of 128GB), but the standard iPhone 17 comes with the same amount of storage -- without the price hike.
My impressions on the other stuff. . .
I also tried the AirPods Pro 3. A cursory headshake proved the buds' new foamy tips were secure, but only a sweaty run will truly test the fit. The noise cancellation, which Apple says is twice as good as the previous model, sounded impressive too, immediately quieting the chaotic, echoey demo area.
These also have the AI-powered Live Translate mode, but the Apple reps said we couldn't try it because of the noise. It's something I am most looking forward to testing with my Swiss husband.
Two more things I couldn't test: The Apple Watch Series 11's high blood pressure alerts, because they need to take a baseline over many days, and would only alert me if I had hypertension, and the Watch Ultra 3's emergency satellite communications, because I was in a basement!
Stay tuned for my more in-depth reviews of Apple's September hardware haul.” [1]
1. Apple's Tech Marvel Comes With Sacrifices --- Our columnist tried out iPhone Air's new slimness, as well as the iPhone 17 line, the AirPods Pro 3 and the latest Apple Watches. Nguyen, Nicole. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 11 Sep 2025: A10.
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