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Iphone Apple

Apple Delays Release of Next iPhone Air Amid Weak Sales (theinformation.com) 58

Posted by msmash from the no-country-for-ultra-thin-phone dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple is delaying the release of next year's version of the iPhone Air, its thinnest smartphone, after the first model sold below expectations, according to three people involved in the project.

Although the length of the delay remains uncertain, the product won't be released in fall 2026 as previously planned, they said. Apple has already sharply scaled back production of the first version, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the matter.
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Apple Delays Release of Next iPhone Air Amid Weak Sales More

Apple Delays Release of Next iPhone Air Amid Weak Sales

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  • I want a thicker phone (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 ) on Monday November 10, 2025 @02:42PM (#65786386)
    With a larger and removable battery.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by leonbev ( 111395 )

      I figured that the iPhone Air was really more of an trial balloon for building thinner phones so they're ready to release their first folding phone/tablet next year.

      At this point, Samsung and Motorola/Lenovo have gotten pretty good at it so Apple has plenty of reference material to copy and improve upon.

      • I dont want a removable battery. I like the phone to be waterproof and durable. But make it uniformly thick around the camera lens and fill the rest with battery. For fucks sake this is the most obvious upgrade ever. They could charge way more for it. When the phone gets heavy, people dont put it down, they change their grip or position to accommodate it.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Hadlock ( 143607 )

          The number of times I've needed a waterproof phone is zero and I spend a fair amount of time on boats

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by jbengt ( 874751 )
            The number of times my daughter's needed a waterproof phone is three and she spends almost no time on boats.
            • > The number of times my daughter's needed a waterproof phone is three and she spends almost no time on boats. Once is an accident, twice is reason to say "Congratulations! You no longer get a high-end phone! Here's your new dumb phone for your dumb ass"
        • wtf are you doing to your phone that waterproofing is a requirement?

        • You can have a waterproof phone with a removable battery. CAT sells waterproof phones that you can take scuba-diving. They have all the normal ports (audio, USB, normal buttons, SIM card, micro SD card, speakers, mic, multiple cameras). To be fair they don't have removable batteries... but it's got everything else and is still waterproof. Though I don't recommend those phones because CAT doesn't provide software updates for long enough, at least they weren't the last time I looked at them. Using it un

    • Yeah really, I've been using Samsung Galaxy phones since the S8 and I've never once thought, "gee I wish this was thinner." Even the S8 at a whopping 8mm thickness, it was like holding a delicate bar of soap. I miss the sub-6" screens, never much cared about thinness.

    • Do you?

      Why not buy a fair phone then which is thicker and has a removable battery.

  • I guess my Air's trade in will be about $5.00

    • Thats all the good material they can get out of it. There's not much to it. I am curious, why did you go for an air, and what did you have before? What challenge were you thinking you would solve with it being an air rather than a Pro/ProMax?

      • I had a ProMax and wanted something smaller / more convenient to carry. I've had no issues with battery life and I looked at the vast majority of the pics I've taken over the past year and they are mostly "visual notes". Pick up this can of beans at the store. This is the furnace filter size to get. That type of stuff. I'm not taking pictures of super models in the desert. I take almost no video. If I did, the Pro would be the obvious choice. But for me, the Air works well.

        When I was deciding which one to

    • I'll give you $10.

  • Apple, your focus groups led you astray. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Monday November 10, 2025 @02:43PM (#65786390)

    Apple, your focus groups led you astray.

    Most phone owners that use them for work want a phone that goes all day long without having to charge, while shooting video, photos, using the Measure tool, etc etc etc. Not just banally and passively doom-scrolling and consuming pablum, propaganda and pornography.

    Real users are not found in focus groups. All you'll find there is fashionistas doing things backwards -- form follows function, and you fools tend to do it backwards.

    I love the iphone and ipad, but thinner, in this case, is not better. Thinner prevents us from having spectacular battery life, and thinner also compromises the design, thermally speaking.

    The only place I would want a thinner device is in a watch.

    • Apple has focus groups? I thought it's just Ivy, or now his replacemet, dropping acid in search of of a pure form, with no time wasted on banal stuff like usability...
    • Tim Cook cancelling the iPhone Mini while the iPhone Air is circling the drain is like burning down your one functional escape pod because the luxury yacht is taking on water.

      The Mini was the last shred of soul left in Apple’s lineup, the one product that wasn’t just a stretched mirror of its own reflection, and he axed it for a device that’s neither small nor premium nor wanted.

      The Air is the physical embodiment of “we ran out of ideas but the shareholders demanded a new SKU.

      • I loved my mini, I just wish it wasn't made with the crappier low-end components. I'd guess that's part of why the sales were so low, people wanted a small powerful phone, not a small gimped one. A Mini Pro would have been amazing. I finally upgraded my 12 mini to a 16 Pro, the phone is too damn big to comfortably hold and use one handed.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EvilSS ( 557649 )
        If the mini was selling, they would have kept it.

        • So they make a gimped product that nobody buys, and then they think it's the product class that is the problem, rather than their gimpy execution.

          Sounds about right.

        • The mini was selling. It made Apple millions in profits. It's just that's not enough for Apple. So they cut their nose off to spite their face and now every phone on the fucking market is too big to fucking hold one handed.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by EvilSS ( 557649 )
            It wasn't selling well enough to keep it. Sorry, but you are in a small but vocal minority here.

  • How about (Score:3)

    by fropenn ( 1116699 ) on Monday November 10, 2025 @02:46PM (#65786396)
    cutting the price? I know Apple would never do that, but it is weird they priced it between the iPhone and iPhone Pro, while not having some of the key features of the iPhone. Keep the lineup the same but flip the pricing point so it's iPhone Air ($$), iPhone ($$$), iPhone Pro ($$$$), and you'd be selling them like crazy.
    • That truly is the question for Apple. I don't know how they've held off smartphone commoditization as long as they have.

  • I want a 4.7" screen (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ZipK ( 1051658 ) on Monday November 10, 2025 @02:47PM (#65786398)
    I want an iPhone with a 4.7" screen that will fit easily into my pants pocket and not jab me when I sit down.

    • I dunno how big the screen is, but the 16 Pro Max is perfect for me.

      My only desires are that I wish the battery lasted 10x as long and it were completely waterproof down to 50m. I'd pay 3x the price for such a phone.

  • MongoDB ad (Score:5, Informative)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday November 10, 2025 @02:58PM (#65786422)

    Anyone else getting that MongoDB ad at the bottom right? It seems to somehow evade ublock origin even when I choose it to be blocked.

  • Whoever gets up to get coffee leaked the story it was decided. So the rest of the wink-wink-elbow jab meeting didn't get anywhere, of course

  • Hey Apple, you know what I'd like? (Score:3)

    by TronNerd82 ( 9588972 ) on Monday November 10, 2025 @03:51PM (#65786536)

    I'd like a phone that I can actually use like a phone, instead of treating it like a delicate, overpriced art piece.

    More specifically, I want a phone that's solid, thick so as to allow for a headphone jack and removable battery, and has a camera that, while good, DOESN'T stick out from the back of the phone like a prosthetically enlarged caveman forehead. I'd like for it to have big bezels on the top and bottom so I can watch stuff on my phone without accidentally hitting the screen and completely fucking up the watching experience. I'd like for it to have a display no larger than 5", and it doesn't even have to be all that high-res - I'll take 720x1280 as long as my wish is fulfilled (which it never will be, but we can hope).

    Ideally, I'd like for it to run completely FOSS software, and have upgradeable hardware (INCLUDING A MICROSD CARD SLOT), much akin to the Librem 5, which I desperately want to buy at some point. No locked-down bullshit, no invasive always-listening "voice assistant" and certainly no "classic Apple innovation" in the form of working against everything the sensible users want and then charging them a premium to get proverbially fucked over.

    Of course, Apple will never heed the word of their users, and will just keep peddling the latest shiny object to spend one grand or more on every 9 months, and that disappoints me greatly.

  • I am still running an iPhone 11, still running an older version of IOS.
    It's a tool, not a toy, not a fashion statement, nothing to do with keeping up with the Jones's .
    So until it dies, I will just stick with it.

    I am also sick and tired of all the "upgrades" being just UI changes. How much wasted engineering went into liquid glass and other wank features.

    Every upgrade means I have to wade through all the setting to turn that crap OFF.
    Oh, and I am boycotting Apple and others for giving Trump money a

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      > still running an older version of IOS.

      What's your phone number? I've got a jpg i can text you that'll root your phone. Gotta keep up with updates or the 0days come quick!

  • Are usually full of shit. Whether it's Gurman or Kuo, or less well known Apple 'prognosticators', their track record is poor. Apple is very (notoriously) secretive, and to think that product release plans would be leaked is very unlikely.

    But if you believe what you read on the Internet, I'm sure you live an "adventurous" life...

  • Great time to reset expectations (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bubblyceiling ( 7940768 ) on Monday November 10, 2025 @04:49PM (#65786696)
    This is a great opportunity for Apple to reset expectations about their yearly iPhone launches.

    Rather than launching the same boring 3 models every year, they should have one unique model. Like the Mini was one. Then they added in Air. Next year could be the Fold.

    Then couple pf years later rinse, repeat. New Mini, new Air, new Fold, which keeps the stragglers with unique needs also buying

  • Thinner isn't enough (Score:3)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Monday November 10, 2025 @05:31PM (#65786780)

    I've had... let's see... six iPhones. 3GS, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13. I reliably skip a major revision. And I would skip more than one, except that my mother gets my last gen. So when her phone needs battery service after being 4 generations back, I shop for a new one. But this time, rather than get a new one, I paid Apple a hundred bucks each to refresh the batteries in my 13 and her 11.

    The 13 is a damned good phone, and there is not a single thing I would upgrade. No compelling reason exists. Thinner? Who cares? I carried the brick in the 90s. I've toted around flip phones, blackberries, pagers... this 13 is pretty much perfect.

    I'll give it up when I drive over it, or LTE becomes a thing of the past.

    Side note: Apple tech cracked my screen separating the shell. For my $100 I got a screen refresh too. :)

  • But much of what was learned from the iPhone Air will go into the iPhone 18 models arriving in March 2027. This means:

    1. The back looks like iPhone 17 Pro but with only two camera sensors.
    2. Larger camera plateau will mean most of the electronics will be inside the camera plateau.
    3. Will use stainless steel chassis but will be a bit thinner than iPhone 16/16 Plus models from 2024.
    4. Wraparound antenna will be stainless steel.
    5. Will come in 6.1" and 6.6" screen sizes with just about no bezels, so the 6.1" m

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