There's not much left to "fix" on mobile phones, and no real important features to add. Lacking that, they need something to sell the phones with, so they're going for these strange "improvements". It needs to be something that has some wow factor so they can lead with. This seems to somehow work on normal people so they'll keep doing these "improvements".
I expect in the future they'll pull this trick again, moving bits of the phone upwards towards camera, and create a second notch from half way down, where the phone will get even thinner, and they'll sell that.
- novel approach to camera optics that can completely flatten them into the phone - front camera hidden behind the screen removing the island or inset - dramatically better battery tech density leading to like week long usage - way more ram (100gb+) and processing power for powerful local llm and other ai - significant reduction in thickness and weight. like this air with no bump but also under 100 grams - maybe some stuff with projectors
With the introduction of the iPhone Air, it would have been a great opportunity to do this on the normal model.
Those who care about phone thickness could buy the Air, and the rest of us could have our large battery flat phones.
Interestingly Chinese manufacturers seem to be the main adopters of this tech. For example, the article below has Samsung, Xiaomi, ZTE, Oppo, Vivo (actually, this may just be due to there being many more large Chinese phone manufacturers in general.) https://www.smartprix.com/bytes/under-display-camera-phones/
I love the idea behind the pro phone and going all out on cameras, but practically I want the air more. I wish it had an ultrawide, but it is what it is - I have and frequently carry around an actual camera with me most places I go where I'd want to take photos.
The thing you are looking for is meta lenses, not the company. They could cover the entire back-face of the phone and provide some pretty incredible capabilities. We are not there yet, but I'd expect to see them in the next 20 years.
- Novel radios that enable true Starlink connection in your pocket for gigabit internet globally
- multi-spectrum imaging for spectroscopy and FLIR-like cameras to get temperature info in images
- Light field camera system for true 3D imaging and synthetic refocusing
- Air quality sensor that can also act as breath analyzer
I'd go back to feature phones if not for BankID and the NFC payment thing.
My phone has replaced my wallet, except I have to keep it charged and it's bulkier.. maybe I just go back to a wallet.
- Batteries that charge fast. Batteries that can support 2-3 days of use. Lighter batteries.
- Thinner camera.
- Better screens outdoor.
- No overheating.
- Better software, or a lower bar: fix the bugs.
- Satellite connectivity.
just few things on the top of my head and things that will interest me and justify a new purchase.
Features I want: ask siri for the things I look up and it works. "When did the baby fall asleep" instead of opening Nanit. "How many more intervals in this workout" instead of opening TrainerRoad. "What is my next meeting" instead of opening Outlook. This was the promise of the new Siri and it just has yet to really come true.
Other than that I agree. Especially camera bumps are annoying to me, I would prefer a phone thick enough to make the bump disappear, that would then automatically solve the battery life issue as well.
Battery chemistry isn't there yet. Frankly, we are lucky enough phones don't set themselves ablaze every day - it only takes minuscule errors and you get a Galaxy Note.
> Thinner camera.
Hard to beat physics and if you ask me, "AI" slop is already being overused on cameras to hide the fact that good picture quality requires sensor area and distance for the optics.
> Satellite connectivity.
We're already beginning to see that with Starlink LTE.
I'm happy with my iPhone, but it still has a week or so shorter battery life than even a relatively cheap Nokia phone and with all that available space I know something it could be used for.
Oh, there's a LOT that can be improved.
IR keyboards lack haptic feedback
Aside from enhancedprivacy, a desire to drain your battery, a lack of recurring revenue for local phone LLMs, and functioning when network is inaccessible, what would a local LLM do that a network-enabled feature couldn't?
We’ll see what the sales numbers are like.
What matters to me is how comfortable it is to hold and use with one hand. Large and thin phones tend to be bad in that aspect.
Niche, but (true) satellite communication. If i understand correctly what we have in the pixel 9/10 is not nearly as useful as having a garmin, never mind the fact that it works basically in europe and US only
It is nice to know that at least some companies are still trying hard to innovate.
All other cameras have wrist straps as a safety feature. From flimsy ribbons on the smallest (smartphone-sized) to padded leather on the largest. They were common on feature phones too. But smartphone makers want people to drop their phones, so people would have to buy new ones, I suppose.
You could get a case with a wrist loop, you say? Not on any of Apple's cases, anyway.
Personally, I think thin is just "omg look at my engineering". blah blah.
I found the (expensive!) bullstrap case to be helpful - thin and slippery enough to slide out of a pocket easily, well engineered to protect the camera.
But really, I think the iphone 13 mini was the most useful/practical application of apple's engineering.
I think a mini-sized 3-camera bulge phone would be great.
The thickness should be from the front to the back of the camera lens, not to the thinnest point they can find.
I would gladly ditch the case if Apple had a strong mounting system integrated into the phone (MagSafe has nowhere near the resistance to shear forces sufficient to hold a phone over bumps on a bike.)
I suppose I am looking for the phone equivalent of a camera thumbscrew mount. If Apple iterated on MagSafe to include an actual mechanical fixture as part of the attachment, I would buy that phone right away so I can avoid using these crappy pieces of rubber/plastic that degrade so much more quickly in appearance than the phone frame rails.
Cases are dirt cheap, if you're paying over $30 for one you're probably overpaying. The expected value of a screen repair, not only the cost but your time makes it a no-brainer.
People need to get a grip. ;)
But a thinner phone still means the end result is thinner in a case.
I didn't understand the appeal of thin phones until I used them in cases.
Average thickness phone + case = bulky phone.
Thin phone + case = normal thickness phone.
That's what makes them great. It's normal thickness with all the protection.
People would still put a case on a bulky phone to protect resale or trade in value.
A super thin phone doesn't require a super bulky case, it requires just as much case as a person would normally use, resulting in a smaller overall profile.
I'd probably still go pro because I care more about the camera than the size.
Just subjectively, I remember having a super scratched iPod and it just felt kind of ratty every time you looked at it. Meanwhile, a phone in a leather case gets kind of a patina that improves with age. It is kind of sad though, I got a really pretty blue iPhone and you wouldn't even know it because it's completely covered by a case.
The Apple cases aren't flat on the back. They have a rim around the camera bump (and they create a rim around the front of the phone, too). The rear rim is slightly taller than the lens bezels (not sure if I used the right word there), so they don't touch the surface the phone rests on. I place my phone+case on the desk face-down because the camera bump and the wobble it creates when resting the phone back down triggers some minor irritation for me. The slight rim around the front of the phone keeps the screen from touching the surface. All of this would be nicer if the phone were flat across the back.
The metal case and toughened glass mean I don't really need the case most the time. I once dropped an older model onto a concrete floor such that it landed on a corner, shattering the screen, so I'm more risk averse with them now.
If you really want protection, the screen is still more fragile than the camera.
I don't have much call for most of the camera system, and my battery life on my Pro is just fine. I have plenty of chargers typically, and for emergencies or times I know I'm going to be out I could potentially get the battery pack.
I basically never use cases on my iPhone, and at most will maybe use an ultra-thin one or some sort of structure adhered to the plateau just to make it flat across so as to not rock on a table.
Now this, good people, is a real use case. If it seems like an edge case to you, I guarantee Apple’s design and product people know of — and optimize for — use cases much more rare.
I wonder if anyone has successfully gone down this path.
I never had this issue with my phone but it was a big reason for moving from an iPad to a Kindle for reading in bed... Dropping an iPad on my face (or even chest) == ouch.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/text-in-bed-drop-phone-on-fac...
Samsung galaxy s2 was a super small super thin phone, 15 years ago almost, which still had user replaceable battery, microsd, 3.5mm, gps, and everything most people would expect smartphone to have.
We then spent a decade making phones 0.2" bigger each generation as if that's an advancement - I.e. As if we couldn't have made them big in the first place (all the while removing physical features).
Then we started making them thin again, as if we couldn't have made them thin before.
It makes me think of cars - VW golf used to be a small car, then it kept growing... So they released Polo... Which kept growing so they made lupo... But each year my entire life they have ads like "6 inches bigger than before" or "10cm more legroom than competition", as if there haven't been small and large cars before.
Grumble Grumble, seen it all before, kids get off my lawn :-)
Although, I'm not a big phone user though, mainly use it when I'm outside of the house. In the house, I'll just use my laptop.
For reference, the 13 mini has a 5.4" screen, and the new-gen iPhones are 6.3", 6.5", and 6.8". Pixel 10 is 6.3" as well.
iPhone 5 was the most perfect size ever and was about 0.3" shorter than the 13 mini, though it had a much smaller screen due to the bezel: https://www.gsmarena.com/size-compare-3d.php3?idPhone1=5685&...
Apple offering is underwhelming to say the least and way too expensive for my use case.
I want to go Android anyway, I'm too disillusioned with Apple currently, I'm tired of dealing with their predatory behavior. But there aren't a lot of decent options there as well but at least you can get it much cheaper, so that's something, I guess.
Previously Apple was the provider of hardware which made the right compromise to allow specific/focused use case, they called it "taste" in a sea of nonsense with bullshit "features". But now it feels like Apple has joined in on the nonsense and is actually leading the pack; which is why the price feels bad. If you are going to make the same crap as everyone else with the same set of bad compromises, I'm not going to overpay for it.
I think this is why Apple "AI" got so much backlash. If they didn't make it or at least market it as heavily as they, did it would have been fine, but it was just the same crap as everyone else, just worse and more expensive. They could have released the exact same phone, just shaving a 100 dollar and have been acclaimed and made more money that way I believe.
Source: https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone-13-mi...
It’s light and the thinness is just fun. I’m not putting a case on it. And I really don’t understand why a phone needs to sit flat on a table—if anything, the angle is a plus.
I'm probably not getting one, but I don't see the point of comparing it to physically smaller phones.
Right. I am sure flatness would have Revolutionary™ had Apple decided to make it rather flat (of course with the "First Time Again In An iPhone™" tag).
I’m potentially considering the air because wasted z-axis space the camera bump creates, I’d use with a MagSafe wallet again, so it wouldn’t be wasted for me. I like that the built in battery is likely sufficient for a day of my use, but can be easily extended with the MagSafe battery on days where I know I’ll be using more juice, e.g. when traveling. None of these things are unique to the air; instead the overall thickness which results from my usage is the differentiator, from which I think I might derive value.
I'd even go with a millimeter or two thicker to have the backplate attached by screws and the battery easily user replacable after a few years.
It stands to reason the iFold/iPaper/iSheet/whatever Apple will call it is drawing closer now that Samsung and several Chinese brands have pretty much solved the design for Apple.
I be been struggling with the 14 pro's weight. So that would mainly be my interest here.
Also almost certainly less likely to get obsoleted by some AI feature given the higher end GPU cores.
They switched the frame from stainless steel to titanium the next year which made the Pro phones noticeably lighter. And now this year the Pros are aluminum like the non-Pros have been for years, which is also pretty light.
The 3 big camera sensors certainly don't help with the weight either, but the good news is they did seem to recognize they were getting to heavy with the 14 Pro.
Most users probably use/need 10% of what a max pro iPhone offers, but they want 100% of the max pro status.
Now they can keep the status without needing to carry a chonker.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2025-economic-we...
$999 is a lot of money.
I definitely agree about them being just about the most banal stupid toy you could spend the money on, but it's still a lot of money to a lot of people despite the cost of basic necessities making it not the huge amount that it used to be. I cringe at paying over $450, considering that every new model of phone since like 2015 hasn't really done anything worth significantly more money.
I say that because I feel similarly, but my out of college coworkers rib me for not having an iPhone. One even commented he'd probably never text me in real life, to which I of course replied that I'd never want him to text me in real life.
Genuine question - maybe I'm too in my own bubble but it seems like iPhone just completely dominates the market and is viewed as the "default" phone, which to me implies status quo, not luxury.
Is it a green bubble or a blue bubble? :)
I grew up with Nokia phones all I want out of my phone is something cheap and rugged with a decent battery life.
In wealthy circles, no. Anywhere else, yes, it’s a thousand-dollar device.
I'm debating if I just replace the battery and let this run another year... since the iPhone X I haven't seen any major upgrades still that feel like they'll matter in my day-to-day life.
A flip would be different...
> chonker
Can't see the specs for the iPhone Air but it looks much larger than my SE 2022. I wish they would bring that form factor back. Obviously not as powerful as bigger iPhones so not useful for posing purposes.
On the other hand, the cameras on plateaus are real issues because they don't lay normally and the cameras are very easy to scratch.
(Edit: Should have refreshed I see. Feel free to ignore.)
The reason for the Max Pro is the larger screen and better battery life
Even the very poor all seem to have new-ish iPhones.
Also not sure what you're on about with "huge bulky phone".
(But if you use it rarely it's better to just rent one, and then you can get a really nice one.)
Recent breakthroughs have produced multilayer metalenses only ~0.5 mm thick that can focus unpolarized broadband light across several discrete wavelengths.
Dual-Pixel Coded Aperture (CADS): End-to-end learned amplitude masks on dual-pixel sensors have shown >1.5 dB PSNR gains in all-in-focus images and 5–6% depth accuracy improvements in DSLR, endoscope, and dermoscope prototypes.
Color-Coded Aperture Imaging: Single-lens, single-frame depth sensing via color-coded apertures has been demonstrated on DSLR and preliminary smartphone modules with depth map extraction sufficient for basic AR and portrait modes.”
Marketing will create hype and desire and the feeling of exclusiveness. Those will lead to sales.
Not every big change is an actual innovation. A lot if just engineering sales via these methods, which aren't very different than fashion, jewelry, or luxury cars.
I might get one because I'm always a bit forced to follow the curve and can't afford to look 'backwards' or 'old fashioned' to stakeholders in the workplace, people in my life, etc who's good side I need to stay on who believe in the above dynamic.
Umm, smaller? We don't need thinner, we need smaller.
Ben Thompson (Stratechery) has been documenting for almost a decade that the biggest driver of new phone sales in China is a new form factor.
I’m sure that might be the same in other markets where an iPhone is a status symbol. It’s definitely not one in the US where 60% of phone buyers have iPhones.
It can still be a status symbol to have the newest phone. That’s imo the only reason for changing camera alignments between generations. So people (who know & care) can see that you have the newest model.
But how is it a status symbol in the US is $25 a month between the SE and the iPhone 17 Pro Max?
[0] https://www.macrumors.com/2025/09/09/iphone-air-esim-china-u...
They want thin phones for the same reason they like fast cars. The same reason that ice cream tastes good.
Why do (some) people like jazz music?
Aside from a tiny amount of nerds needing post hoc rationalisation as to why they blew $1500 on a gimmick, absolutely nobody will go looking for a phone and consider grams/mm² as an important measure.
I do hope that the metal they are using is on the grippier side (like the black 16 Pros, as opposed to the 16s)
The size and weight of the phone does look tempting, but its battery life is a deal breaker for me. I'm pretty sure there's no way its built-in speakers could possibly match those in the Pro models, which is also very important to me.
I have this recurring vision of what could have been if we never lost Steve before the industry went whole hog in on the camera bump fad. It goes something like this:
SCENE: Steve Jobs' office on the eve of the iPhone 7 release
"Hey Steve here's the new prototype for iPhone 7, we think you're going to love it!"
Steve picks up the phone, fumbles it around for a moment, flips it over, and runs his index finger over the camera bump
"You're fired. Now, you" points to another engineer "Get rid of the bump."
And just like that, we were saved from this nightmare. Alas, the world is shit now and no one cares about anything anymore. But I can say without question he would have never allowed it.
The main issue is weight distribution, although current designs are slightly top heavy anyway.
A less obvious issue is that people would tend to hold the screen vertically while taking photos, which would distort the visual plane of the lenses at the back.
I'm sure both of those could be solved, and a wedge would create something original, instead of the nth iteration of the same ugly wart aesthetic.
The argument is that you shouldn't need to pick one or the other. They got us used to the bump because it is cheaper and simpler for them to build. The same with literally everything now. No more striving for excellence, it's just "what can we normalize and force people to put up with so we don't have to fix the problem".
Jobs's "design horse-sense" was also strongly against the screen size you take for granted as well.
Maybe its time to put away these weird hagiographies.
1. Flip one switch in settings to enable sideloading
2. Download and open an APK
3. Flip one more switch (which you get automatically redirected to and it's highlighted at least on Samsung phones) the first time installing from whichever app source (Chrome/FDroid/etc).
4. Click install
Other than step 1, the user is led through the process via prompts, and step 3 only has to be done once per source. i.e. the first time you install from FDroid, after that you just click install without any nags or scare screens.
As far as I remember the "enable sideloading" switch in settings has always been a thing, and the per source setting was added at least 5+ years ago.
iPhone Air is at 165g. I'll get ~72% of the weight and be able to comfortably use the device without getting tired.
Sample size of one and all that apply, of course.
The Air and Pro are essentially the same with a different skin. It’s a big deal imo as the phone itself is practically modular. It’s pretty brilliant as they can make the computer part in China and Taiwan and probably ship that unit to various locales for different form factors.
the argument that the bump defeats the purpose of a thin phone is only true if you're trying to squeeze it through a narrow gap in a rigid object.
I'd believe this is an area where even a few millimeters of thickness makes a real difference in how much the phone in pocket stands out despite the overall footprint being larger? Will be curious to read once people get their hands on the things.
I am personally interested because I have found iPhones to be offensively bulky for... 10+ years, and this has the potential to feel differently.
It looks really cool
Yeah, it has a bump. Thicker phones have a bump too. It's still less volume in your pocket.
Also, it looks really cool.
signed, apple CFO
