Technologies

iOS 17 Review: Standby Mode, Meaningful Changes in Messages and More

After months of waiting, Apple released iOS 17 to the public on Monday, Sept. 18.

Whether you bought one of the new iPhone 15 models or are holding on to a 5-year-old iPhone XS, you can download iOS 17 now. Apple released the operating system on Monday, Sept. 18 after introducing it at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

I started beta testing versions of iOS 17 in July on a newer iPhone 14 Pro and an older iPhone XR to see how the latest OS will affect most people with compatible devices. The OS brings a lot of new and useful features to your iPhone, especially in Messages, which might make you wonder why those functions weren’t there in the first place. Some apps, like Shortcuts, are less daunting than they were in previous iOS versions.

iOS 17 picks up visually where iOS 16 left off. Contact Posters in iOS 17 brings visuals to contacts similar to those iOS 16 brought to the lock screen. But I found Contact Posters more fun than useful. The largest visual change is StandBy mode, which turns your iPhone into a mini hub filled with widgets, photos and customizable clocks.

iOS 17 will work on iPhone XS and newer models. But while the new software makes experiences seamless and less burdensome on older and newer iPhones alike, some features really shine on newer models, like the iPhone 14 Pro. That doesn’t mean you should avoid iOS 17 if you have an older iPhone — you’ll still experience about 90% of iOS 17’s benefits. StandBy mode, for example, worked on my XR, but with the display’s sleep timer turned off, I had to lock my screen in order for it to work. Once in StandBy mode, the display goes to sleep a short time later.

Now, let’s get into some of my favorite iOS 17 features.

StandBy mode is a standout

When Apple announced StandBy mode at WWDC, I was skeptical. My wife and I don’t have a smart display, like the Amazon Echo Show, or any other kind of supplementary hub in our home, and we’ve been just fine — and yes, if you come by later, I’ll probably be yelling about the weather. But StandBy mode is my favorite new iPhone feature in years, and it’s not even close.

Sure, you could say StandBy mode makes your iPhone into an expensive bedside clock, but if you just use it as a clock, you’re missing out on so much functionality. Interactive widgets on my screen made it easy to check the weather, read the latest headlines and much more. I could also change music playing through connected smart speakers without fishing my iPhone out of my pocket.

Notifications also showed up on my screen, and I could easily preview them without unlocking my iPhone. So when I got a notification from an app like Ring, I could quickly check if it’s the mail person delivering a package or just a car driving down the road. And with Live Activities and StandBy mode combined, I could follow the score of an MLB game while I watched an NFL game on TV.

StandBy mode even started to improve my relationship with my iPhone. Before iOS 17, if I got up from my desk to grab a snack or go to the bathroom, I’d make sure my iPhone was in my pocket — and if it wasn’t I’d immediately go into detective mode to find it and put it back where it belongs, my right front pocket.

Since I started using StandBy mode, I regularly leave my iPhone behind on its charging stand while I make another cup of coffee or grab the mail. When I notice it’s not in my pocket, I might shrug and think, «It’s on the charging stand. I’ll grab it later,» and those instances are getting more frequent. And I’ve welcomed this change. Disconnecting from our devices could have major health benefits, like reduced anxiety and depression, so whether Apple intended it to or not, StandBy mode could help improve your mental health. I certainly feel more relaxed.

The iPhone on a MagSafe charger in StandBy mode

But StandBy mode has room to improve. Currently there are a limited number of widgets that can be used with StandBy mode, and email widgets, like Mail, are sorely missing. Being able to quickly check your email, or any social media app, from StandBy mode would elevate the usefulness of this feature. I’m not seeing more widgets in the iOS 17 release candidate, but a Mail widget still might be included in the final version. If it’s not, Apple should include it in an update soon.

StandBy mode also works best on iPhones with always-on displays, like the iPhone 14 Pro. It will work on other iOS 17 compatible iPhones, like the iPhone XR, but only until your screen goes to sleep.

Messages upgrades beyond autocorrect

Yes, autocorrect will now learn from your messages so it won’t correct you all the «ducking» time. Is this cool? Yeah. Am I immature? Also, yes. The cursing in my texts now flows without interruption or confusion. But more so, autocorrect has improved overall to better understand what you mean. It’s also not as eager to correct things like acronyms or slang.

The keyboard in Messages with the message sometimes autocorrect gets it wrong, and that's ok in the text field

Messages also gets a host of other new features that make staying in contact with others easy and effortless, including an autocorrect undo function. «But wait, didn’t you just say autocorrect will better understand what I mean and not correct me all the time?» Yes, dear reader, glad to see you’re paying attention, but autocorrect still gets it wrong sometimes — same here, autocorrect. When it does make a correction, Messages will underline the corrected word. If you tap the word, you’ll be given the option to undo the correction, reverting it back to what you originally typed.

Another upgrade is a catch-up arrow in group chats. I go to sleep relatively early — around 8:30 p.m. — and sometimes, when I wake up, a group chat with my family or friends has 30 new messages. Instead of scrolling up to find the start of the messages, there’s a new arrow that will take me to the first message in the conversation that I haven’t read. This has saved me a lot of confusion about why my friend group can’t meet up. However, this feature was present in early beta versions but not later versions. The catch-up arrow is expected to arrive in iOS 17 later this year.

The app bar has been replaced with a drawer. Next to your message field, there’s a plus sign button that you use to pull up iMessage apps like your Camera, Memoji and others. You can rearrange these, too, so apps that you use more, like the #images app, can be easily accessible. This is a small but helpful change. Before iOS 17, sometimes the app bar would disappear on me, and I’d have to swipe my screen up or down to bring it back. Now all the apps are in the same easy-to-find place.

Create and send your own Live Stickers

With iOS 16, Apple introduced the ability to lift a photo’s subject from the background, giving you (mostly) clean-looking cutout pictures. With iOS 17, Apple lets you use these cutouts to create your own stickers, called Live Stickers. You can add different effects to your stickers, like a white outline or a holographic filter, to make your stickers standout. And you can make animated stickers from Live photos.

As a proud pup parent, I make and send more stickers of my dog than I’d like to admit. But I’ll gladly share a small sample of the stickers of Cinnamon Toast Crunch — yes, that’s her name. Are these stickers useful? Not really, but I’m having fun with them.

iOS 17 can automatically delete verification code messages

Two-factor verification messages are a great way to improve security when logging into an account or service. You know what really annoys me about them though? All the random messages and emails that clutter my inboxes. But that’s no longer a problem.

With iOS 17, your Messages and Mail app can automatically delete two-factor verification codes once the code has been used to autofill its intended field. I love keeping all my inboxes clean and tidy, and this new feature is like a virtual Roomba that gets rid of those unnecessary messages as soon as they are used.

Shortcuts improvements

Some of the new Shortcuts shown on the Shortcuts homepage

Confession time: I never used Shortcuts on my iPhone before. Setting them up confused and frustrated me. The Shortcuts homepage intimidated me too, so I convinced myself that Shortcuts weren’t worth it. But thanks to iOS 17, I changed my attitude and have already integrated a few into my everyday life.

For starters, Apple changed the Shortcuts homepage to show a handful of premade ones, like creating a new note in Notes, that you can easily add to your homepage with a long press. The new layout isn’t as daunting, and should make it easier for others to see what Shortcuts can do.

The camera level is a game-changer

When I take photos or record videos for social media, I worry that they’re not going to look straight. Before iOS 17, I’d try to line the grip up with a straight line in frame, but if I was out in nature I’d just try my best.

The level in the Camera app is yellow when the photo is straight

In iOS 17, the Camera app has an onscreen level so you can straighten your videos and pictures. The level comes across the center of your screen as a thin white line but it turns yellow when it’s level. It’s helped me take straight photos, and I also used it to double-check whether a picture frame on my wall was level when hanging it.

Grocery lists in Reminders

I love grocery shopping. I like walking the aisles, finding my items and seeing all the people and what they’ve picked up. But what I don’t like is forgetting an item on one side of the store after I’ve walked all the way across and picked up everything else I need.

Luckily, Reminders has a new feature that lets you create a grocery list separated into sections with headers like Produce, Breads & Cereals and Household items. The app automatically creates these sections as you add items and sorts them into the appropriate categories. The app even recognizes certain brand names, like Dr Pepper and Ritz, and sorts them appropriately, too.

iOS 17 features not available at launch

The biggest iOS 17 feature that’s not included at launch that I’m excited about is the Journal app. Apple announced the app at WWDC in June, saying it would be able to give you suggestions about what to journal about, keep your entries private and more. However, Apple said the Journal app would launch later this year.

Collaborative Playlists in Apple Music collaborations aren’t available with iOS 17 yet either. This feature is said to let people invite friends and family to edit playlists or react to certain tracks on the playlist. There’s no word on when this feature will be available yet.

Apple had also announced that AirDrop will be able to finish a file transfer when devices move out of range of each other on iOS 17. However, we’re still waiting for word on when this will be available.

The final word on iOS 17

The latest iOS version brings a lot of functional improvements to your iPhone, even if you don’t have the newest model. Not all the changes are big and flashy, like StandBy mode, but most feel meaningful.

A few words of caution for when the new operating system arrives: Before you update your iPhone to iOS 17, you should back up your iPhone as a precaution. And while it might be tempting to download iOS 17 as soon as possible, you might want to wait a day or two to see if other people are having problems with their iPhones, and so that your device downloads the update faster.

For more Apple news, check out the iOS 17 cheat sheet and reviews for the iPhone 15, 15 Plus, 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max.

Take a Look at Apple’s iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro: New Colors, Prices and More

iphone 15 in five different colors from an angled view

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Technologies

Everything You Need to Know About iOS 18.4 Before iOS 19’s Reveal

The update brought new emoji, controls and more to your iPhone.

Apple will hold its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9, where we will likely get our first glimpse of the upcoming iOS 19 software for iPhones. When Apple released iOS 18.4 in March, the update brought some bug fixes and security patches to all iPhones, as well as a handful of new iPhone features, which included new emoji and a recipes section in Apple News.

Here are some of the new features iOS 18.4 brought to your iPhone. Just a reminder that only people with an iPhone 15 Pro, Pro Max or the iPhone 16 lineup can access any Apple Intelligence features for now. If you have any other iPhone, you won’t have access to those features.

All the latest emoji, and my new favorite

Look at that emoji. It’s called face with bags under eyes, and I love it. The tired expression, the bags under its eyes, it’s all just great. And you can use that emoji and others with iOS 18.4.

There are eight new emoji the update brings to your iPhone, including:

Google unveiled these emoji as part of Unicode 16.0 in September.

Priority Notifications with Apple Intelligence

People with an Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone got a new feature in iOS 18.4 called Priority Notifications.

«Apple Intelligence can show you notifications that may be important in a separate section on the Lock Screen, so you can catch up on what you may have missed,» Apple writes in the feature’s description. «You can still swipe up to view all notifications.»

After I downloaded the update, priority notifications were turned off by default, but you can turn them on by going to Settings > Notifications > Prioritize Notifications and tapping the toggle next to Prioritize Notifications. Then you can select which applications to prioritize notifications from. So if you want to prioritize Messages and Mail, you can disable notifications from other apps, like Game Center.

Apple Intelligence in the Control Center and beyond

If you have an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone, you can now access Apple Intelligence features in more places with iOS 18.4.

The first place you can access these features is in your Control Center. To find these controls, swipe down from the top-right corner of your screen to open your Control Center, tap the plus (+) sign in the top-left corner of your screen and tap Add a Control. There is a new section in this menu called Apple Intelligence & Siri, and it has three controls: Talk to Siri, Type to Siri and Visual Intelligence. Tap one or all of these to add them to your Control Center.

You can also now open Visual Intelligence from your iPhone’s Action Button in iOS 18.4. Go to Settings > Action Button and you can assign Visual Intelligence to open when you press your Action Button.

You can also disable Visual Intelligence from the Camera Control button on the iPhone 16 lineup. To do so, go to Settings > Camera > Camera Control and tap the toggle next to Press and Hold under Launch Visual Intelligence. Now the Camera Control button will just open your camera.

Ambient music in Control Center

If you like playing music in the background while you work, do chores or relax, you can now easily access ambient music in your iPhone’s Control Center with iOS 18.4.

To find these controls, swipe down from the top-right corner of your screen to open your Control Center, tap the plus (+) sign in the top-left corner of your screen, tap Add a Control and you should see a new section of controls called Ambient Music. There are four ambient music options: Sleep, Chill, Productivity and Wellbeing. Tap one (or all) of these controls to add them to your Control Center. Once the controls are in your Control Center, tap control, and it will start playing music.

You can also change the playlist for each control. To do so, go into your Control Center, tap the plus (+) sign in the top-left corner of your screen, tap the ambient sound control you want to edit and then tap the playlist to the right of Playlist. If you’re in the Chill control, for example, the default playlist is Laidback Lo-Fi. Once you’ve tapped the playlist, you’ll see more options — Mellow Piano, Ambient Unwind or even the option From Library, which pulls from your music. Tap the playlist you want and it will be assigned to that control.

I love this addition to my iPhone because I always struggle with picking out a playlist at the beginning of my work day. Tapping the Productivity control makes it easy to play music when I’m waiting for my coffee to kick in and don’t want to make a musical decision yet. However, I do wish all these controls could be grouped into one control or widget.

This is also an interesting addition to your iPhone considering your phone can already be turned into a white noise machine with Background Sounds. It feels like Apple is trying to make your iPhone the first device you turn to when you need music to help you fall asleep or be more productive, potentially icing out other services offering similar playlists, such as Spotify or YouTube.

Sketch mode in Image Playground

Image Playground is the Apple Intelligence image generator. In iOS 18.4, Apple introduced an art style called Sketch to the app. The new style creates a fully colored image that looks like a sketch you might see in someone’s notebook. However, there are still plenty of imperfections in these photos.

Image Playground had two art styles before this update, one called Animation — which created 3D images — and the other called Illustration — which made cartoony images.

Preauthorized Payments menu in Wallet

If you use your Wallet app for multiple subscriptions and payments, you can now see them all in one menu in iOS 18.4. Open Wallet, then tap the three dots (…) in the upper right corner of the screen to open the dropdown menu. Tap Preauthorized Payments to see all your subscriptions and payment plans you use your Wallet app for. This also makes it easy to see a subscription you forgot you had so you can cancel it and save yourself some money.

In an early beta version of iOS 18.4, this menu in Wallet was called Subscriptions & Payments.

Recipes in Apple News

Apple News Plus costs $13 a month and gives you access to articles from major publications, puzzles and now — recipes.

In iOS 18.4, subscribers can access a new section in Apple News called Food, which is filled with recipes from publications such as Food & Wine, Good Food and others. Subscribers can save recipes to their devices to access them offline later, and a new cook mode will display instructions on full screen so you can easily follow along with recipes while in your kitchen.

The new Food section also has stories on restaurants, healthy eating tips and more, but let’s be honest — having access to all those recipes is a great addition. Apple’s inclusion of this feature is likely the tech giant trying to take on other publications’ cooking and recipe sections.

The New York Times, for example, launched its Cooking section in 2014, and the Times said it had nearly 600,000 Cooking subscribers by 2020. The section isn’t included in the publication’s basic subscription plan, so you must either pay an extra $6 per month or subscribe to a more expensive plan to access this section.

But Apple isn’t charging extra for access to recipes like the Times. That makes an Apple News Plus subscription more valuable to home cooks or anyone trying to become a better chef at no extra cost.

The new Vision Pro app

If you have a Vision Pro headset connected to your iPhone, you’ll get a new Vision Pro app in iOS 18.4.

Apple writes in the app’s description that the app can help you learn about new visionOS features, explore new content, spatial experiences and more.

I don’t have a Vision Pro but I can still download the app in the App Store. Because I don’t have a Vision Pro, I can’t do much with this app other than see what apps the Vision Pro can use. For example, if I tap into the section for new apps and games, I can’t buy or download any of the apps because they require a Vision Pro to use.

Good on Apple for not letting people buy or access apps they can’t use. I can see a company letting someone buy a similar app that needs specialized equipment and then the company shrugs when someone complains they don’t have the right device for the app.

More default app changes

When Apple released iOS 18.2 in December, that update let you change the default apps for messaging and calling. And with iOS 18.4, Apple is letting some people change more default apps.

One new default app category is Translation. With the update, you can change your iPhone’s default translation app — Apple Translate — to another third-party app, like Google Translate.

And according to 9to5Mac, people in the European Union can also change their default navigation app. Apple Maps is the default for this category, but people in the EU can change it to another app, like Waze.

Podcast changes

The iOS 18.4 update also brings a few new updates to the Podcasts app. If you want to add a Podcast widget to your home screen, you now have more options, including Shows and Library. Choosing a Shows widget will play episodes from a particular show you follow, and choosing a Library widget will play episodes from a list you specify in your library.

There are also two new ways to get to different settings in Podcasts in the update, Podcasts Settings and Notification Settings. You can find these by opening the Podcasts app and tapping your profile image in the top-right corner of your screen. Podcast Settings will take you to the Podcasts menu in Settings, and Notification Settings will take you to your Notifications menu in Settings.

Siri, Apple Intelligence and iPhone Apps

With iOS 18.4, Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhones can use Siri to learn more about first-party apps on the iPhone. To access this, go into an app such as Messages, Mail or Settings, then tap twice across the bottom of your screen to type requests to Siri. Siri will then show you a few suggestions based on the app you’re in.

So if you’re in Phone, Siri will display «What can I do in Phone?» Tap this suggestion and you will get a list of actions you can do in the app, like make a call or a FaceTime call and, strangely, open Phone. Thanks, Siri, I never would have thought I’d be able to open Phone after I opened Phone.

Apple Intelligence coming to more people

One of the hurdles to accessing Apple Intelligence is having a compatible iPhone, but for many people around the world with an appropriate device, those features are still walled off. But that changes with iOS 18.4.

Apple wrote in iOS 18.4’s update notes that Apple Intelligence is available in more languages, including French, Japanese and Spanish. The tech giant also wrote that people in the EU can access Apple Intelligence for the first time with the update.

Here are the full release notes for iOS 18.4.

Apple Intelligence (All iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max)

Priority notifications appear at the top of your notifications, highlighting important notifications that may require your immediate attention.
Sketch is now available as an additional style option in Image Playground, allowing you to create gorgeous sketch drawings.
Apple Intelligence features support eight additional languages and two additional English locales, including English (India, Singapore), French (France, Canada), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (South Korea), Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, and Spanish (Spain, Latin America, US).

Apple Vision Pro App

The new Apple Vision Pro app, automatically installed for users with Apple Vision Pro, helps you discover new content, spatial experiences, and quickly access information about your device.

Apple News+

Recipes from some of the world’s best recipe publishers are now available on Apple News+.
Recipe Catalog allows you to browse or search to find the perfect dish and save it to your Saved Recipes.
Cooking mode lets you easily follow step-by-step directions.
The Food section also includes stories about restaurants, kitchen tips and healthy eating.

Photos

New filters to show or hide items that are not contained in an album, or synced from a Mac or PC, in the Library view in Photos.
Reorder items in the Media Types and Utilities collections in Photos.
Consistent filtering options in all collections, including the ability to sort by oldest or newest first in Photos.
Option to sort albums by Date Modified in Photos.
Ability to disable «Recently Viewed» and «Recently Shared» collections in Photos Settings.
Hidden photos are no longer included for import to Mac or a PC if Use Face ID is enabled in Photos settings.

This update also includes the following enhancements and bug fixes:

Safari recent search suggestions help you quickly get back to previous search topics when starting a new query.
Setup Assistant streamlines steps parents need to take to create a Child Account, and enables child-appropriate default settings if parents prefer to complete setting up a Child Account later.
Screen Time App Limits persist even after a child uninstalls and reinstalls an app.
App Store includes summaries for user reviews so you can get helpful insights from other users at a glance.
Pause and resume of an app download or update on App Store without losing progress.
New widgets for Podcasts including a Followed Shows widget to track your favorite shows and a Library widget to get to your most used sections, such as Latest Episodes, Saved and Downloaded.
Ambient Music offers the ability to instantly play music from Control Center, giving access to a set of hand-curated playlists that offer soundtracks for daily life.
Apple Fitness+ Collections can now be added to Library.
Matter-compatible robot vacuum cleaners can be controlled in the Home app as well as be added to scenes and automations.
Support for 10 new system languages including Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

Some features may not be available for all regions or on all Apple devices. For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit:

https://support.apple.com/100100

For more iOS news, here’s what features were included in iOS 18.4 and iOS 18.3. You can also check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet and what we hope to see in iOS 19.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for May 21, #444

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 444 for May 21.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle was a toughie for me. Even when I had the letters, I struggled to unscramble some of the answers. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Three’s a crowd

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: You and me.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints, but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

PLUM, MOLE, SOLE, COLT, BLOT, BOLT, SOUR, DOUR, RUDE, TINS, WINS, TORE, COUP, COLD, BLOW, BLOWS, SENT, TENS.

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you’ve got all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

PAIR, MATCH, TWINS, COUPLE, TWOSOME, PARTNERS

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is DOUBLETROUBLE. To find it, start with the D that’s three letters down on the far-left row and wind across and up.

Quick tips for Strands

#1: To get more clue words, see if you can tweak the words you’ve already found, by adding an «S» or other variants. And if you find a word like WILL, see if other letters are close enough to help you make SILL, or BILL.

#2: Once you get one theme word, look at the puzzle to see if you can spot other related words.

#3: If you’ve been given the letters for a theme word, but can’t figure it out, guess three more clue words, and the puzzle will light up each letter in order, revealing the word.

Technologies

Every iPhone 17 Air Rumor: What to Know About a Slim New iPhone

Speculation around a thinner iPhone raises questions about battery capacity and camera features. Here’s what we know so far.

Rumor has it, we may soon see an ultra thin iPhone. The rumored iPhone 17 Air — or it might be called the iPhone Slim — could potentially replace the current iPhone Plus amid Apple’s next iPhone release in the coming months.

The buzzed-about «Air» is getting a lot of attention in the iPhone 17 rumor mill, but the prospect also has people asking if Apple may have to sacrifice features to get a super thin phone.

Here’s the skinny on what we could expect with the newest iPhone.

iPhone 17 Air release date: Is the slimmer iPhone coming this year?

For nearly a decade, Apple has held an event in September to announce its new phones. This year we expect Apple to reveal the iPhone 17 series, including the rumored iPhone 17 Air.

If the iPhone 17 Air rumors are true, Apple would be the latest to join the ultra-thin phone trend this year. Last week, I got to try out Samsung’s new lightweight Galaxy S25 Edge after previewing it and a slew of shockingly thin phones at the Mobile World Congress in March.

The iPhone 17 lineup may be the last to follow this fall-release model, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and a report from The Information. Starting with the iPhone 18, Apple will reportedly split its phone releases so that lower-cost iPhones launch in the first half of the year (previously reserved for iPhone SE models) and higher-end pro models are announced in the latter half. That would likely mean a rumored iPhone 18 Pro, Pro Max, Air and new foldable iPhone model could debut in fall 2026. Keep in mind that an iPhone Flip or Fold has been rumored for years.

You’ll likely be able to preorder a new iPhone the Friday after the announcement, with the phone shipping a week later.

What will the iPhone 17 Air cost?

Early rumors about an iPhone 17 Air hinted that it could cost even more than the iPhone 17 Pro, but a March Bloomberg report suggested the phone could cost around $900. That price tag would align with the rumor that the «Air» could replace the Plus, which currently costs $899. For comparison, Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge starts at $1,100.

However, there’s also the question of how tariffs could affect the price of an iPhone. Amid President Donald Trump’s ongoing tariff drama, Apple has mostly escaped additional taxes by stockpiling inventory and getting most of its products on a tariff exemption list.

Apple has moved some production of US iPhones to India to avoid the steeper tariffs imposed on China. However, Trump recently said he pushed Apple CEO Tim Cook to move US iPhone production from India to the US. How much all of this could affect iPhone prices is yet to be determined.

Regardless of how tariffs play out, Apple is expected to raise the price of the iPhone. These price hikes are rumored to start with the iPhone 17 line, so prepare now to pay more for «Air.»

iPhone 17 Air camera: potential downgrade?

Among the rumored potential sacrifices Apple may have to make to get a skinnier phone is limiting the camera features.

The rumored iPhone 17 line is getting a new camera bar that extends across the width of the phone. But Front Page Tech shared an iPhone 17 Air video in February that showed a physical mockup of the phone based on rumors. One of the more surprising reveals was a smaller camera bar with one lens on the left, suggesting the «Air» phone has a single rear camera, similar to the iPhone 16E ($599). It’s not clear if the camera would be the same as the 16E or if Apple would go the route Samsung did and include the main camera from the iPhone 17 Pro.

The single camera theory is backed up by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and a Bloomberg report, which said that the rumored Air may not have the ultrawide and 5x telephoto lenses that have become staples of Apple’s premium iPhones.

In a bit of good news, it’s also rumored that the front-facing «selfie» camera on all iPhone 17 models, including the Air, will be upgraded to 24 megapixels, according to analyst Jeff Pu.

iPhone 17 Air vs iPhone 17 Pro

It may be getting a lot of attention, but the rumored Air appears to be less an advanced Pro model and more a replacement for the Plus.

However, rumors are that the Air would have a 6.6-inch display, according to analysts Jeff Pu and Ming-Chi Kuo. If accurate, that would mean the Air’s display is slightly smaller than the iPhone 16 Plus, with a 6.7-inch display, but larger than the iPhone 16 Pro, which features a 6.3-inch display. The iPhone 16 Pro Max leads with a 6.9-inch display. It’s unclear if the 17 Air’s screen would be a Pro Motion display like the one found on iPhone Pro models.

If the rumored Air lives up to its name, then the biggest potential advantage it could offer over a Pro is its size and weight. A Bloomberg report from March notes that the iPhone Air could measure 5.5mm thick, compared to the iPhone 16 Pro at 8.25mm.

Mac Rumors reported that a leaker on the Korean-langauge Naver blog, going by «yeux1122,» said that the rumored iPhone 17 Air weighs approximately 145 grams (5.11 ounces). Compare that to the iPhone 16 Pro, which weighs in at 199 grams (7.03 ounces). If this rumor proves true, the Air would be just slightly heavier than the iPhone 13 mini, which weighs 141 grams (4.97 ounces).

Bloomberg’s report also notes that the iPhone 17 Air is expected to have super slim bezels compared to the rest of the line, along with a Camera Control button and a Dynamic Island cutout in the display.

iPhone 17 Air battery life expectations

Among the challenges of slimming down an iPhone could be figuring out how to reduce the battery size without compromising battery life.

Initially, it was assumed that a skinnier iPhone would simply have a reduced battery life since there would be less space to house a large battery. But more recently, AppleInsider reported that a skinnier iPhone might use a silicon-anode battery that could help extend its battery life.

Yeux1122 said the battery capacity is 2,800mAh, based on details that originate with «mass production confirmed sample,» according to MacRumors. It added that a high density battery in the Air could increase its «actual capacity» by 15 to 20%.

If the rumored iPhone 17 Air does use the silicon battery technology, it would be the first iPhone to do so.

Are iPhone Air rumors and leaks to be trusted?

Rumors are just that. The speculation leading up to the iPhone’s release is often based on insider knowledge or leaked information from the teams working on the iPhone’s design, but those plans can continue to evolve and are not necessarily reflected in the final product. We’ll only be able to confirm these rumors with certainty when Apple officially releases the next iPhone and we can see it for ourselves.