According to all the rumors of the last few months, Apple is planning to launch a new ultra-thin iPhone 17 modelKnown as the iPhone Air or iPhone Slim, today we have learned more details about what it will be like.
Apple is planning to launch the thinnest iPhone ever, or at least that's what the experts say. Initially called the iPhone Air, it now seems that in some other places they are starting to call it the iPhone Slim, but the truth is that if the iPhone Air seemed like an unlikely name to be true, the new iPhone Slim seems even less so. The fact is that the extreme thinness of this device, which It would be only 6mm thick, represents a major challenge for the company, which has had to make important decisions to achieve its manufacturing.
The first of those decisions is do without the SIM trayThis is nothing new, in the United States only iPhones are sold without this tray, using only the eSIM, but outside the North American market this type of technology is not so widespread among operators, so it could be a problem for its international distribution. The same thing already happened with the Apple Watch, and it did not prevent Apple from launching it internationally, thus forcing operators to get their act together when their customers demanded this type of technology, so it could happen again.
The real problem would be in China, where regulators do not allow the use of eSIMs on phones because they require personal identification of the user, something that current eSIM systems do not allow as accurately as physical SIMs. Could Apple lock China out of the international iPhone Air/Slim market? It seems unlikely.
In addition to this issue, we have to deal with the 5G modem that it would use. An iPhone this thin will have its weak point in the battery, so achieving maximum consumption efficiency will be essential. That's why it will use, according to rumors, its own 5G modem, abandoning Qualcomm, which until now has been the supplier of this component. Apple has had many problems in the development of its 5G modem, to the point that it was even rumored to be abandoning the project. Will this new modem be reliable? According to experts, it will not be as fast as Qualcomm's, but it will be smaller and consume less. In addition, it will not have mmWave connectivity, so it will not be able to use the fastest 5G networks.
Finally there is the issue of the camera. If we reduce the thickness of the device to 6mm There is no room left for the camera, so this element will have to stand out even more than in current models. Aesthetically, this will be a challenge for Apple. We already have very thin devices like the iPad Pro, but the camera does not even come close to the quality that the iPhone can offer. Another sacrifice in favor of extreme thinness? Everything seems to indicate that they are Too much effort just to have a very thin device. Will it be worth it?