We’re hearing that Apple will unveil its iPhone 17 lineup—including the new ultra-thin iPhone 17 Air, which seems to be taking over for the current iPhone 16 Plus—sometime in September. A fresh leak from reliable insider Majin Bu (shared via 9to5Mac) offers our first look at the Air’s battery design. It’s housed in a steel enclosure much like what we saw on the iPhone 16 Pro, and its remarkably slim profile really stands out when you look at it head-on.
Bu’s sources put the Air’s battery capacity at about 2,900 mAh, nearly matching the 2,800 mAh number floating around in earlier whispers. That’s quite a drop from the 3,561 mAh pack inside the standard iPhone 16, but Apple’s ongoing work on power efficiency and the rumored battery-boosting tweaks in iOS 26 should still deliver a full day’s use—even with the battery taking up less space.
If these rumors hold true, the iPhone 17 Air will measure just 5.5 mm from front to back—dramatically thinner than the 7.8 mm iPhone 16, and even sleeker than Samsung’s new Galaxy S25 Edge at 5.8 mm. Naturally, shrinking the chassis raises questions about endurance, but Apple’s tight integration of hardware and software has historically wrung extra runtime out of modestly sized batteries. Here’s hoping the iPhone 17 Air repeats that trick.
Apple is expected to introduce the Air alongside the regular iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max in early September—sources suggest a window around September 8–10, though the company hasn’t confirmed dates yet.
