The iPhone 17 Air could be as powerful as the 17 Pro, but with a catch

By Nirave Gondhia Published August 12, 2025

We’re less than a month away from Apple’s rumored iPhone 17 launch on September 9, and we’re learning more about all four upcoming phones every day.

Previous rumors have confirmed that Apple is expected to launch four phones, similar to the last few years, but with a key difference: there won’t be a Plus model. Instead, it’ll be replaced by the iPhone 17 Air, Apple’s forthcoming ultra-thin competitor to the Galaxy S25 Edge.

A new post on Weibo from Fixed Focus Digital (via TheShortcut) suggests that Apple may follow Samsung’s lead by using its most powerful processor in the iPhone 17 Air, despite its thickness, with a key catch that’s likely designed to aid in thermal management.

Samsung’s ultra-thin candybar phone — and the ultra-thin Galaxy Z Fold 7, which followed last month — both use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset, which is the most powerful Android chipset we’ve tried; however, both also throttle the CPU and GPU performance under resource-intensive loads to prevent overheating.

The report from Fixed Focus Digital suggests that the iPhone 17 Air will use the same A19 Pro chipset planned for the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, but with a difference: one fewer GPU core. Instead of the six-core GPU used by the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, the Air will feature just five cores. In actual practice, this is likely to mean a drop in overall graphics performance, but the iPhone 17 Air should still be able to run the latest games.

It’s worth noting that this is the first we’ve heard about Apple using a more powerful chipset in the iPhone 17 Air. Given the phone is expected to be just 5.5mm thick — 0.3mm thinner than the Galaxy S25 Edge — it was widely expected that it would launch with the standard A19 chip planned for the regular iPhone 17. However, Fixed Focus Digital has a track record of accurate Apple leaks near launch, so this could yet come to fruition.

Given that the iPhone 17 Air will be incredibly thin, it’s quite likely that Apple will have to throttle both CPU and GPU performance at times to ensure the phone doesn’t overheat. A redesigned vapor chamber that’s both shallower and wider, paired with a graphene-looking thermal pad above the SoC, helps the Galaxy S25 Edge manage its thermals; I can’t wait to see what approach Apple takes.