iPhone Air may be a design win, but AI doubts linger

Apple CEO Tim Cook channelled his predecessor and design genius Steve Jobs last week when he unveiled the iPhone Air, the company's slimmest handset yet and the biggest change in eight years to a lineup that fans and analysts had complained was stagnating.

- STEPHEN NELLIS ADITYA SONI

Mr Cook kicked off the company's annual product launch event at its Cupertino, California, headquarters with a Jobs quote: "For us, design goes beyond just how something looks or feels. Design is also how it works."

Inside its 5.6-mm (0.22-inch) slim frame — thinner than Samsung Electronics' S25 Edge at 5.8 mm— iPhone Air's circuitry has been shrunk to the size of a few postage stamps to deliver on Apple's claim of "all-day battery life".

Many analysts had predicted a ho-hum reception ahead of the event, but some said after the event that four new iPhones — Air, 17, 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max — were a lineup likely to appeal to customers with varied budgets.

"We were more impressed with the look and capabilities of the Air than we expected to be and could see this being a device that helps to improve iPhone upgrade rates over the next 12 months," Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in an investor note, though they added the device that features an eSIM was unlikely to sell well in China, where eSIMS were regulated.

'STILL BEHIND EIGHT BALL'