I hope more companies make iPhone air competitors, here’s why

By Nirave Gondhia Published October 10, 2025

One of the most surprising phones this year for me has been the iPhone Air. I’ve only been using it for a few weeks, but it’s grown on me considerably as a phone, despite some of its shortcomings.

Apple wasn’t first to the ultra-thin phone game, but the iPhone Air has me excited for many reasons. Following on the heels of ultra-thin non-folding phones like the Galaxy S25 Edge and Tecno Pova Slim, as well as folding phones like the Oppo Find N5, Honor Magic V5, and Galaxy Z Fold 7, the iPhone Air proves that thin is definitely in this year.

Yet, it’s more than just a thin phone. In many ways, it’s the ideal form factor for developing future technologies. Here’s why I hope other companies follow suit and build their own iPhone Air competitors.

The iPhone Air may seem just like a thin phone, but Apple has been incredibly smart in its design choices. To achieve the 5.64mm thickness, the company introduced a new Apple N1 that houses the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Thread antennas. This is also used on the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max, and is likely to be a mainstay in future iPhones as well.

The N1 chip, the new A19 Pro chipset, several other components, and the new C1X modem — a half-step generation above the C1 modem used in the iPhone 16e earlier this year — are all housed inside the camera plateau. The rest of the iPhone Air is filled with a battery that’s custom-designed to fill all the remaining space.

This form factor lends itself to future technologies incredibly well. There’s the rumored iPhone Fold for next year, as well as Apple’s eventual foray into the smart glasses market. There’s also the same 48MP main camera as the rest of the lineup, as well as the new 18MP Center Stage selfie camera. Aside from the lack of zoom and ultrawide, the camera system is extremely capable.

Before the launch, it was widely expected that the iPhone Air would launch as the iPhone 17 Air and be a key addition to the lineup going forward. However, the lack of concurrent branding suggests that it’ll follow the iPhone SE lineup with limited special releases. 

This means it’s being used to test future product ideas, and we won’t have to wait long to see how Apple’s ultra-thin efforts evolve. The company is widely expected to release the ultra-thin iPhone Fold next year, with the iPhone Air likely serving as a significant precursor to its development.

At 5.64mm thick, two iPhone Airs sandwiched together to create a fold would be considerably thicker than the competition. However, for a first-generation effort, it would be thinner than both Samsung and Google managed with their first foldables. More likely, however, is that the iPhone Fold will measure between 9 and 9.5mm thick when folded, and 4.5mm to 4.8mm when unfolded.

I’ve been covering smartphones for nearly twenty years, and one thing is clear: we’ve been in a bit of a rut regarding how the overall concept of the smartphone has evolved. For much of the past decade, we’ve seen companies fight over the same few key specifications, with less regard for their size and weight.

That’s changed over the past 18 months as more companies have built ultra-slim phones. Honor can be credited with kickstarting this trend with the ultra-thin Honor Magic V3 last year, while Samsung followed suit with two major thin devices this year. Sandwiched between them is the Oppo Find N5, which briefly held the title of world’s thinnest folding phone, having captured it from the Magic V3, only to lose it to the Honor Magic V5 subsequently.

Each of these phones has pushed us towards the evolution of the smartphone concept. How thin can a phone be with a large battery, telephoto camera, big display, and great performance? How big a role will AI play in helping us achieve this, especially with telephoto cameras requiring a larger physical space, especially the periscope telephoto kind?

Apple’s entry into the ultra-thin market will spur competition and, crucially, also raise customer awareness of the segment as a whole. The net result is a new race, this time to build thinner phones that don’t skimp on the core specs. However, it also means the camera bump, bar, and plateaus are also here to stay, as we’ll see with the upcoming Galaxy S26 Ultra, which is 0.3mm thinner than the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but has a thicker camera bump.