There I was sitting next to Apple’s head of worldwide marketing Greg ‘Joz’ Joswiak, as he actually implored me to try to break the new iPhone Air. I used all my strength, and the 5.64mm thin phone bowed (slightly), but did not break.
It takes a lot of confidence in your new ultra thin flagship to invite me to do that right in the middle of a filmed interview.
I asked Joz and John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president for hardware engineering, all about the iPhone Air, which is the thinnest iPhone ever. I wanted to know some key things. Who is this for? What were the biggest challenges in designing it? And how did they decide on what trade-offs to make to bring the Air to market?
I was joined by TechRadar’s Lance Ulanoff for this two-part interview, and he actually got to bend the iPhone Air first. But not before he fumbled a pass from Joz. And that, frankly, makes the iPhone Air look more durable.
We also talked about whether the Air could be a preview for a foldable iPhone, and I had to ask why Apple won’t offer a 100x zoom with the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max and use AI to help create photos. Watch the interview on our YouTube channel or read on for the transcript below.
Watch On
iPhone Air: Who is this for?
The iPhone Air ostensibly replaces the iPhone 16 Plus in Apple’s lineup, but this is a completely new phone built from the ground up. And the goal was to create something that puts your content front and center to the point where you almost forget you’re using a device. It’s a similar mission Apple had with the original iPad.
It’s just kind of that realization where technology disappears and it’s just you and your content.
Greg Joswiak, Apple
“This product, more than any other, it just feels like you’re holding a display,” said Joz. “You know you’re holding your content, that it’s just kind of that realization where technology disappears and it’s just you and your content and we love that.”
Making this vision a reality wasn’t easy, though, and Apple had to bring many of its home-grown technologies together to make the iPhone Air happen. It’s not just about the A19 Pro chip, but also Apple’s new C1X modem and N1 chip that combines the Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth and Thread connectivity.
“It wasn’t just one thing we needed, it was lots of things,” Ternus said. “We needed advancements in our materials development, Ceramic Shield on the back to be able to create that hollow plateau. If you look at the inside of the iPhone Air, almost the entire phone is living right up there in that top and that in that plateau. And then we need the efficiency of Apple silicon. So it was all of these pieces that had to come together.”
The payoff? Seeing people hold the iPhone Air for the first time. “It’s been so fun to watch people just pick it up. And that first reaction is wow,” Ternus said.
Also, just so you know, I asked about the term “plateau” and why Apple uses that instead of camera bump. It turns out that Apple has been using that word internally for a while.
The Real-Time Bend Test
When Apple says its $1,000 iPhone Air is more durable than any previous iPhone, they mean it. Like, really, really mean it.
Apple’s Joz then tossed over the iPhone Air and said “Try to bend it. It’s on me.” We tried to bend the heck out of this phone. It did not break.
The iPhone Air features a titanium band around the device, but it also has a Ceramic Shield 2 display that’s 3x more scratch resistant, along with a Ceramic Shield back that’s 4x better than a typical glass back at protecting the handset from cracks.
And, yes, Apple remembers the “bendgate” controversy from 2014, where users suffered bending iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models.
“Drop performance is exceptional. It exceeds our internal metrics for bend strength,” said Ternus. And just then Joz chimed in and said that they’re “really high.”
To put their money where their mouth is, Joz then tossed the iPhone Air to Lance Ulanoff and he said “Try to bend it. It’s on me.” Both Lance and I tried to bend the heck out of the iPhone Air. It did not break.
Wait, what about the single camera?
As tough as the iPhone Air is, there’s only so many components Apple could fit into that plateau. There’s no ultrawide or telephoto lens. Just a single 48MP wide camera. But Apple says this should be versatile enough for most Air buyers.
Don’t be fooled by what appears to be a single lens camera, because it’s a pretty capable shooter, said Joz. “You can shoot at four different focal lengths, including having optical quality 2x telephoto. It takes incredible pictures,” he added.
If you want the best cameras, though, you’ll want to step up to the iPhone 17 Pro series, which was literally redesigned around the camera system.
Is the iPhone Air a precursor to a foldable?
Listen, I had to ask. With the iPhone Air being so thin, could it be a precursor to a possible iPhone Fold? After all, there have been multiple reports that Apple is readying a competitor to phones like the Galaxy Z Fold 7 for 2026.
This is all I got from Joz: “I’d rather focus on what we have here today. We got enough to talk about, stuff that’s real.”
But it does sound like at the very least that Apple could be using the Air to help inspire other products coming in the pipeline.
“As we develop new technologies and pieces, we often take inspiration for things across other product lines,” said Ternus. “And so much of the things we learned in material science and miniaturization you’ll see those pop up in other places, because when we’ve got something really good, we want to take advantage of it.”
iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max: Why Apple won’t do ‘fake’ 100x zooms
In part 2 of our Apple interview, TechRadar has a full breakdown on the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max in terms of the controversial redesign, how they achieved 40% better sustained performance through a new vapor chamber cooling system and why Apple chose aluminum over titanium for the design.
But I had to ask one question about the digital zoom for the Pro and Pro Max and why Apple wasn’t pushing beyond 40x at a time competing phones like the Galaxy S25 Ultra and Pixel 10 Pro are using Space Zoom and ProRes Zoom, respectively to achieve 100x zoom.
The short answer is that Apple wants to keep it real.
“Look. We use AI for a lot, and we use computational photography for a lot. There’s literally a billion operations that happen to take a photo. But we do like it to be real,” said Joz. “There’s competitors that have painted moons into the scene, So, yeah, there’s places to use it. But we like to be real.”
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